


























Library of The Theological Seminary 


PRINCETON * NEW JERSEY 
Cb 


PRESENTED BY 


Miss Emily Tupper 


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THE TRAVEL DIARY 
OF A PHILOSOPHER 
IN TWO VOLUMES 
+ 
Volume 


2 


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DAG “osrear seuss’ 
TRAC GE Ee Di ACR Y. 
PHILOSOPHER 


COUNT HERMANN KEYSERLING 
+ 


TRANSLATED BY 
J. HOLROYD REECE 


hb 


VOLUME TWO 


NEW YORK 
HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 


+ 


FIRSTIPEINTING, APRILVSroos 
SECOND PRINTING, JUNE, 1925 
THIRD PRINTING, AUGUST, 1925 


PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY 
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY 
RAHWAY, N, J. 


fe LONG) SE) ANE he 


PART FOUR 


To the Far East 


BAY OF BENGAL 
RANGOON 
PENANG 
SINGAPORE 
HONG-KONG 


PART FIVE 

China 

CANTON 

MACAU 

TSING-TAU 

THROUGH SHANTUNG 

TSI NAN FU 

PEKIN 

HANKOW 

THE YANG-TSE 

SHANGHAI 


PART, six 
Japan 


YAMATO 
KOYA-SAN 
NARA 

KYOTO 

ISE 
MYANOSHITA 
NIKKO 
TOKYO 


143 


150 
164 
174 
205 
209 
ai 


214 


6 CONTENTS 


PART SEVEN 


To the New World 


THE PACIFIC 237 
HONOLULU 244 
THE KILAUEA CRATER 247 
LAVA FIELDS 249 
THE CRATER 252 
BAY OF WAIKIKI 255 
TOWARDS AMERICA 259 


PAC RS ta BG Ai 


cAmerica 
SAN FRANCISCO 279 
YOSEMITE VALLEY 281 
THE MARIPOSA GROVE 287 
THE GRAND CANON 290 
CALIFORNIA 294 
YELLOWSTONE PARK 296 
SALT LAKE CITY 310 
EASTWARD 318 
CHICAGO 331 
NEW YORK 237 

PART NINE 

Home 

RAYKULL 363 


Index 373 

























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32 
IN THE BAY OF BENGAL 


FTER IJ had only ministered to the mind for many months, 
JN body, impatient of this state of things, resorted to the 
extremest measures for coming by its due: I was taken seriously 
ill; I spent the last weeks in India on a bed of sickness. In its 
Way it was no uninteresting period. It is a peculiar experience 
to feel oneself less as an acting personality, but rather as a 
scene of action; as the arena in which microbes fight their 
battles. Besides, one experiences in times of physical debility, 
psychic transpositions which, as a change, are not unwelcome 
tome. Traits of my being come into evidence when I am ill 
which as a rule remain hidden; the feminine aspect gains 
supremacy, with the result that the world appears in a different, 
more personal and more friendly light. During such times I 
am without will, without wishes, and I think of my habitual 
efforts, which express themselves often so violently, with that 
gentle, amiable sympathy with which women watch man’s 
unreasonable ambition. 

For the time being I am convalescent; this is a condition 
which always affords me the keenest enjoyment. As a rule, I 
feel my body as something extraneous, given to the mind as 
some inalienable matter, without inner connection with myself. 
But now my mind is completely passive, while the regenerating 
physical forces are all the more busily at work; and conscious- 
ness, now being centred in the body, enjoys the blissful feeling 
of uninterrupted productiveness. 

The small child’s sense of happiness may be of this kind. 
Grown-up individuals know conditions of a similar degree of 
comfort only during times of physical weakness; the less so, 
the more they belong to the intellectual type. The theoreti- 
cally normal psycho-physical equilibrium, in which the centre of 
consciousness resides midway between the physical and the 
psychical, so that both seem real in the same sense and degree, 
is not and cannot be a normal condition for people like our- 
selves. No matter how different the dimensions are to which 

9 


10 TO THEVEPARVEAS T PART IV 


our physical and mental life belongs—it is one energy which 
is expended in both spheres, and where one of them is called 
upon to meet the highest requirements, the other must necessa- 
rily suffer proportionate neglect. It would appear as if Eng- 
lishmen possessed the secret of combining both achievements, 
they who are always sportsmen as well as brainworkers. As 
a matter of fact, it is just they who prove the impossibility of 
such a union. Their intellectual level, as far as profundity 
is concerned, is, almost without exception, lower than that of 
the Germans, for the very reason that their Calocagathia robs 
their soul of a portion of its contingent potency. 

Yes, it does one good to lead a merely bodily existence for a 
while, to do nothing and to let oneself have things done to one. 
Such periods signify, moreover, natural reaction to times of 
intensified mental activity. The Yogis, it is true, assert that 
one should never relax: a single day during which one’s aim 
is lost out of sight carries one back to a position which one has 
regarded as already overcome. Undoubtedly they are right in 
so far as the intention is to traverse finally into other worlds. 
The man, who, on the other hand, does not mean to lose his 
normal abilities, but would rather train and enhance the effi- 
ciency of their functions, has every cause to be careful of too 
much Yoga: for the violation of natural processes can result in 
lasting paralysis. The Indians would not be so unproductive 
if they were worse Yogis, for they are not lacking in talent; the 
constant fixing of the mind bereaves it of its spontaneity; it no 
longer works of its own accord. The very nature of produc- 
tion, however, consists in discharging, from time to time, the 
creations which the mind has matured in silent rumination. 
For this reason, the man who here below wishes to achieve any- 
thing dares not force nature, whose normal courses proceed only 
in the form of the spiral. The alternation between various 
modes of consciousness, the rhythmic change of interests, is 
necessary and beneficial in the same sense as the alternation 
between waking and sleeping. I have learnt long ago not to 
suffer from periods of depression, and not to feel uneasy during 
spells of mental inertia: I know that temporary stupefaction is, 


CHAP. 33 RANGOON II 


in the strictest sense, the preparatory condition of ensuing 
enlightenment. 


33 
RANGOON 


ow admirably the laws of compensation work in this world! 
Ho, leaving a country, weary with its impressions, one 
always suspects one’s power of receptivity to be exhausted; 
and yet, as soon as one betakes oneself to other climes, one 
is sure to be surprised by the welcome experience of having 
remained as impressionable as before—for the new impressions 
require different organs from those which one had any oppor- 
tunity for using before. In this way Burma is the almost 
mathematically exact complement of India, life being lived 
here entirely through the senses. India is beautiful, magnifi- 
cent in parts, yet no typical Brahmin would subscribe to 
Théophile Gautier’s confession: Je suis de ceux pour lesquels 
le monde visible existe; for him the Visible is Maya, mere 
semblance, or at any rate not worth seeing. His overwhelming 
propensity for the supersensual that inspires his soul has paled 
nature into a play of shadows for him. Little or nothing does 
he know of the individual purport and pregnancy of the hills, 
nothing of the primeval forest, nothing of the sea; he may, at 
most, be cognisant of gardens when under the spell of sultry 
dreams. And where Nature is overpowering to such a degree 
that he cannot evade her impressions, he transposes her mean- 
ing into transcendentalism, and in this process the peculiar 
meaning of appearance vanishes once more. Such an attitude 
is incompatible with normal humanity; it is fraught with pen- 
alties for such as are not marked out to be supersensual (in 
opposition to those who have a divine right to look beyond 
the sensuous), in so far as they not only appear, but are more 
obtuse than otherwise less gifted people; since they refuse to 
look upon the sensuous, while unable to cope with the trans- 
cendental they behold nothing at all. If a man has acquired 
this attitude temporarily, he is affected by it in the long run 


12 LO; bab A RA AsS. PART IV 


as by a nightmare. Not very receptive souls may possibly 
remain unimpressed by India’s psychic atmosphere: the scenery 
works upon them directly; they see the things in front of them 
as though thousands of years of thought had not transfigured 
the world. I, for one, felt the presence of spiritual entities 
unceasingly. I also was incapable of seeing Nature in India 
otherwise than as Maya; I felt as though I was trespassing 
when by chance I took her at her word. Thus, it strikes me 
as a happy release that I find myself to-day in a world which 
lives altogether for and through the senses. _ 

This applies to Burma to an extraordinary degree, more so 
than to France or Italy, more even than to ancient Greece, 
whose atmosphere still hovers over her ruins. In Europe 
spirit is intellectually too powerful. The Greeks never ceased 
dreaming of Eternal Beauty, and ever since the whole of West- 
ern art has followed in the footsteps of this ideal—if only in 
the sense that the crudest nature is being glorified as an ideal. 
Thus, French sensuousness is, at bottom, metaphysics, for it 
is entirely based upon mental premises. Deprive the French- 
man of his imagination, and you will see his characteristic 
eroticism disappear. In Burma there is no kind of mental 
background whatsoever. Buddhism, which might indeed have 
created such a background, has in fact only built up a neutral 
frame within which the senses live their own naive life. 

The keynote of Burma is the Burmese woman, the uncon- 
sciously self-conscious girl. Her charm sways the whole of 
the life of the people. Nature herself wears her colours, she 
is the fostering genius of art. When I gaze upon the wilful 
curves of the temples and pagodas, the dainty wood-carvings, 
the glittering pillars, my thoughts instinctively revert to the 
maidens who move laughingly beneath and among them. The 
movement that inspires Burmese forms of art is instinct with 
the same spirit that teaches the daughters of the country how to 
walk, the glass ornaments mirror their smiles, the decorations 
reflect their own colours. Even the terrifying dragons and 
serpents on the copings and flagstaffs seem to harbour no more 
serious intention than that of frightening the exuberant chil- 
dren, every now and again, in the midst of their play. In this 


CHAP. 33 RANGOON 13 


world the girl reigns supreme. The fundamental traits in the 
kindly faces of the old men are animated by understanding for 
them, and even the monks appear to wear such an austere and 
dignified air for the sole purpose of restraining youth, from 
forgetting the seriousness of life altogether—as it is just the 
girls who insist that every boy, for no matter how short a 
period, must have been a real monk (just as in Germany he 
must have been a soldier). 

Until nightfall I sat in the square facing the Shwee-Bagon- 
Pagoda. I saw the rays of the sun pass slowly through their 
whole range of tints on the gilded roofs, I saw the girls, flowers 
in hand, performing their evening devotions, while the old 
men, puffing tobacco contentedly, watched the sportiveness of 
the young. Two beggars were playing weird tunes in front of 
me upon junker-shaped wooden cymbals. Inquisitive crows 
meandered around me. Gaily coloured cocks displayed their 
unerring feeling for style in their heraldic attitudes. And, 
occasionally, a half-starved dog appeared who was so appall- 
ingly, so improbably ugly in form and expression that I could 
not help exchanging knowing glances with the wooden dragons 
overhead. 

When night descended I drove back into the town. A Bur- 
mese house opened its hospitable door to me. And while the 
wrinkled mother was having her comfortable snore, I smoked 
and jested with her four daughters, exuberant children of 
compelling charm. My tongue was unintelligible to them, nor 
was I acquainted with theirs. Still we managed to understand 
each other very well with the help of the comprehensively 
human language of mirth, whose symbols are innate in every 
one. 


+ 


HOW can one avoid, given an artistic disposition, idealising 
the country and the people of Burma? What one sees and 
experiences here recalls again and again the myths of the 
Golden Age. In those days there were neither cares nor wants; 
all men were fond of each other, war and strife were unknown. 
Life sped happily on its way, like that of children in the mirror 


14 TOWDH BE FAR east PART IV 


of grown-up consciousness. Burmese life seems to speed along 
in just the same way. 

This condition is due to Buddhism. Its extraordinary forma- 
tive power in tropical surroundings appears ever more im- 
pressively in Burma than in Ceylon, because here the Church 
has far more importance than there, and because the possible 
merits of the picture hardly count compared with the frame. 
The Burmese as human beings cannot be placed on a high 
level in any sense; they are neither profound, nor do they 
possess real goodness of heart. These virtues are never devel- 
oped in the case of children. Even the monks, however digni- 
fied they look, can hardly be regarded as being formed in- 
wardly by Buddhism, which can be said of many among the 
Bhikshus of Ceylon: they have been formed externally, like 
the average Catholic priest. The wisdom of the rules of 
Catholic orders is great, but it proves its efficacy only subject 
to special, more or less abnormal, conditions. The Buddhistic 
canon in its grand simplicity is a form appropriate to almost 
every inhabitant of the tropics, and leads him to perfection as 
a matter of course. 

How poor and puerile are the religious ideas of the Burmese! 
Religion means to them, on the one hand, a certain routine of 
life, an inherited form of psycho-physical hygiene, and, on the 
other, a cheap and easy means of supplying oneself for the 
beyond or one’s next existence upon earth. It suffices to build 
a pagoda, to bequeath a fountain or a rest-house, to share one’s 
superfluity with the poor, and to participate in the religious 
festivals which resemble our merriest fairs, in order to accumu- 
late so much ‘merit’ that the future appears assured. This is 
precisely the type of religiosity which predominates among the 
people in Southern Italy and Spain—perhaps the lowest of all 
conceivable types. But in making this observation the probiem 
is not solved. Can one expect a profounder sense of religion 
from the superficial souls of children? I should say that one 
ought not. They are not sufficiently independent for that. For 
them religion can only be an outer frame, whose value depends 
on the degree in which it forms them. Now this is exactly 
what Buddhism in Burma has been so successful in, that a 


CHAP. 34 PENANG 15 


condition predominates among these irresponsible children 
which is really comparable to that of the Golden Age; given 
their inborn nature, they could not possibly be anything more 
or better than what they have become thanks to Buddhism. 
And this is certainly not due to its outer form in and by itself, 
but to the immanent profundity of Buddhism. Its form is the 
direct expression of its contents, and since these are so wonder- 
fully true, form has been able to work miracles, even where its 
meaning has been misunderstood. For, in questions of practical 
life, it is not absolutely essential that a man should be conscious 
of the wisdom of the rules he obeys; let them be but wise, and 
they will evince their magic power even where they have never 
been understood. There is more truth in the ancient belief in 
the efficiency of magic formulas than our day cares to admit: 
there is virtue in words and phrases, which is communicable 
even to those who are incapable of grasping more than the 
letter. 

The banks of the Irawaddy are studded with more monu- 
ments of piety than those of the Ganges. Pagodas upon pago- 
das adorn the slopes, cloister upon cloister, overshadowed by 
blossoming trees and encompassed by green gardens, enliven 
the sandy plains. Still the Irawaddy is not a holy river. It 
lacks a deeper symbolism, its greatness is purely quantitative. 
Nor does the gravity of Burmese pilgrims convey an impres- 
sion of seriousness greater than that of school-children who, 
without thinking of the possibility of getting tired, are deter- 
mined to taste all the possible joys of a Sunday excursion to the 


full. 


34 Of 
PEMANG 
en 


4 ive vegetation of the Malayan Peninsula impresses me as 
though I had never seen the like of it before. I bend an 
admiring gaze upon the naive self-assurance of the shoots, 
the intelligent pliancy of the creeping and climbing plants, the 
insinuatingly tenacious wooing of the foliage for a place in the 


16 TO THE FAR EAST PART IV 


light: that wondrous tropical vegetative process which in its 
stillness yet conveys the impression of greater abundance of 
movement than the restlessness of a human crowd. It is true 
that by reason of the extreme exposure those shades of 
colour and form on which the beauty of a northern forest would 
depend are lacking here; it is with difficulty that one succeeds 
in disengaging particular forms in the sea of greenery. But 
the life of the whole derives a surplus of vitality from this very 
circumstance, each separate existence being merged in the 
whole. Just as a thousand little rivulets together make a 
stream, so tropical nature is borne in upon one’s mind as an 
indivisible and glorious unit of life. This flora is incredibly 
rich, even more luxuriant than that of Ceylon. And it is more 
beautiful, too, for here lofty stems again and again cleave the 
maze of the jungle, so that the uncontrolled luxuriance of 
growth creates an impression similar to that of shading on a 
clear contour drawing. It is chiefly the light grey of the rotting 
trunks of the jungle giants that enables the eye to survey the 
immensity of the green. Here death has, as it were, marked 
the division of the bars in an all too intertwined score. 

What wondrous magic there is in the world of plants! The 
restful, and, as it were, inevitable perfection, the unquestioned 
harmony of co-existence, the unconscious beauty of the plants, 
their care-free existence in itself, which yields withal a perfect 
solution of the problem of life, invariably arouses in me the 
feeling of certainty that I too am winning my way towards my 
goal. For I myself am deeply rooted in plant life, and there- 
fore I can understand it; plant life is the everlasting sub- 
structure of the movements of my soul. And the more I grow 
conscious of this fact, the more secure do I feel. Here these 
friendly plants envelop me almost impetuously in the at- 
mosphere of their being. They encourage me to think that I 
already possess the certainty for which I still search and 
struggle blindly, that I have already attained my goal; they 
intimate that all is well with the world.—How could precisely 
the active-minded man fail to see his dearest complement in 
plants? Was not the peaceful Sachsenwald the very place 
where Prince Bismarck loved to roam? We speak of defiant 


CHAP. 35 SINGAPORE 17 


oaks, of majestic pines: such descriptions are not substantial. 
What is essential for us in plants is just the fact that no word 
or concept taken from the active life of man can be applied to 
them. But the plant is comparable to women, or, rather, the 
life of women bears a resemblance to that of plants. It is the 
same motive which attracts the combative man to the restful 
woman, and to the unconcerned plant. Both are manifestations 
of that modality of life where the end seems attained at the 
very outset. It is what man’s restless soul yearns for. It is 
for this reason that we men, as long as the decision was in our 
hands, always laid particular stress on the vegetative aspect of 
women. Wedo not stand in need of the active, energetic, 
busy woman. 

This planet must have been a delightful place while plant 
life was still paramount upon its surface. Was it necessary for 
life to enter at all upon the arduous career of active progress? 
No superman will ever go beyond the rose, as far as realisation 
of significance is concerned. Why has this cumbersome way 
been adopted? This is the question I have so often asked 
myself dispiritedly when gazing from the pinnacle of a tower 
I had scaled, upon the flat land below. To-day, full of melan- 
choly, I put the same question. I know: the ascent is our fate; 
I myself would despair if I were to rest. Yet when I recall 
the vistas disclosed to my view during the earliest stages, when 
I think of the joys which life offered to me then, I cannot 
help regretting that I was fated to rise. 


6b) 
SINGAPORE 


4 Diss plant world determines the character of Malayan na- 
tures so much that I fail to be affected by anything else; 
again and again my gaze is captured by the plants. 

I have not been absorbed in this form of life since Ceylon, 
therefore my interest in it is as new. I realize once more that 
for any one who could understand plants perfectly, life would 
no longer hold any secrets. And the plants surrender them- 


18 ROVE PA RSE ASL PART IV 


selves so ingenuously to man. No being could be more sincere 
than they are, more truthful, more genuine; they perhaps, of 
all the world’s creatures, represent themselves precisely as they 
are. How few men do this unless it be at fleeting moments! 
No matter how true they want to be—again and again some- 
thing inessential, something accidental, steps into the fore- 
ground of the picture and the whole, which constitutes the real 
being, appears distorted. This applies even to the higher 
animals; whereas the plants, these blessed, pure creatures, are 
never subject to evil moods, and always mirror the very core 
of their being. Even phenomenologically their manifesta- 
tions are quite as rich as those of more mobile beings: the 
variety of their forms is such that nothing short of a divine 
imagination could multiply them. In all probability, the open- 
ing up of the psychic sphere, that gave so much additional 
scope to man as compared with animals, has not led to any sort 
of new formation, whose spirit the plants had not realised upon 
their own level. The flora implies, on a definitely localised 
plane, not only a perfect expression of the spiritual, but, more- 
over, by far the most perfect which has been found so far. 
The highest specimens of mankind, regarded from the angle 
of perfection as compared with any flower, seem like abortions. 
Thus, the flora does not only raise, but also answers, all the 
problems which the human spirit may propound. The con- 
templation of plants has once more made me conscious of the 
empirical meaning of freedom. What do we call a free act? 
A spontaneous event taking place according to strictly pre- 
destined laws. The elementary notions contained in the above 
definition are illustrated by plant life with wonderful plasticity. 
I know nothing less mechanical than the springing-up of a 
shoot in the tropics; if anything can be called spontaneous, 
then it is such triumphant growth. Still, the laws of nature 
are never more directly in evidence than here. I am looking 
at one of those strange giant leaves which, as if by wilful inten- 
tion, hang on their stem upside down. How taut is their form, 
how vibrating with inner life! And yet its nature can be under- 
stood, mathematically and physically, without further ado, and 
a technician might possibly have designed it—Are we, in 


CHAP. 35 SINGAPORE 19 


practice, freer in any sense at all than the plants? Hardly. 
The basis of the empirical concept of freedom is the possibility 
of arbitrary action. But the arbitrary man is, in reality, the 
most fettered; no matter how tyrannically he may rule the 
world, he is a slave to himself, to his own passions, to the 
elements of his own soul, and only differs from plants in so far 
as his nature, as such, is more mobile, more fluid. Even the 
man who controls himself is not yet truly free, but only he who 
is free from himself, whom self-love no longer trammels in 
any respect; this, however, means, in the language of mysti- 
cism, the man who is perfectly obedient to God, or, expressed 
more scientifically, whose personal will is at one with the super- 
personal power which appointed his place in the world of 
appearances—and this again means the man who allows events 
to happen to him as the lily does. Plants and men are both 
ultimately free; that is to say, the life which animates them 
is essentially freedom. Empirical events have the same mean- 
ing in both cases; it is a process of self-expression accord- 
ing to laws. It is not an essential difference whether this 
happens by means of unconscious impulses, blind instincts, 
personal wishes, conscious agreement, or initiative in doing, 
which, ultimately, reaches beyond the personal sphere; the 
growing of plants, the wilful or sacrificial action of men—all 
mean the same thing. Were the plant to raise the question 
of liberty, its answer would not differ from our own. 

I would have discovered the meaning of the instinct of im- 
mortality with less trouble if, instead of analysing my own feel- 
ings, I had looked deeply into all this greenery. All concrete 
ideas of immortality are excrescences of the root-consciousness 
that personality is no ultimate entity, that the meaning of life is 
more profound. This truth is demonstrated ad oculos by the 
flora. The plants know nothing of individuality, they are only 
exceptionally aware of death. The emphasis even in the most 
specialised single existence rests on what survives death. 

And beauty? In the face of plants its meaning jumps to the 
eye. Every appearance strikes us as beautiful in which the 
existing possibilities find perfect expression. For this reason 
plants are always beautiful when nothing external has inter- 


20 TO THE FAR EAST PART IV 


fered with their growth. Moreover, they wear a festive gar- 
ment when the time of perpetuation draws nigh; then they are 
resplendent in the most glorious decoration of bloom. Schol- 
ars have endeavoured to explain this by considerations of 
utility: how blind intellect is! Beauty is everywhere a purpose 
unto itself; it is the ultimate expression of potentiality. The 
whole of creation becomes beautiful during the season of love, 
because then infinite, superindividual possibilities manifest 
themselves for a while in the individual, because then the spirit 
of eternity transfigures what is mortal. In the case of man, 
it makes his soul blossom; its gloriousness beautifies, as long 
as the blossom lasts, the plainest face. In the case of plants, 
being is exhausted in corporeality, the spirit puts forth cor- 
poreal blossoms. 

The contemplation of the plant world gives one a key even 
to the darkest and most tragic problem: the one-sidedness of 
every direction of development. A being is either a monad or 
an element; as a monad it is doomed to death, as an element 
it is, though immortal, impersonal. A tree is perfect, either 
while in bloom or as a bearer of fruit, either as a towering stem 
or the dispenser of shade, either in rapid growth or solidity 
of fibre. The tree cannot be everything all at once. The 
utmost which is open to its effort is to fulfil many possibilities 
of perfection consecutively, in the course of its various periods 
of life: to grow rapidly at first, then gain in firmness; to devote 
itself first to its blossom, then to its fruit; to shoot upwards 
first, then to spread itself. But few are endowed with so rich 
an inner life that they can attain perfection in more than one 
sense. 


36 
HONG-KONG 


7 Dae scenery of Hong-Kong reminds me of the Riviera; I 
have left the tropics behind me. The tension of the at- 
mosphere has slackened, the rays of the sun are no longer 
oppressive, all transitions have become more soft and gradual. 


CHAP. 36 HONG-KONG 21 


Sundown and sunrise in the tropics disappoint the man who had 
high expectations of them: the sun rises up in the morning 
from the horizon like a fiery bubble—and it is light; at evening 
it sinks back into the sea like a heavy drop of molten metal— 
and it is night; no colour symphony before or afterwards, save 
when dense cloud-banks create the refraction of light of moder- 
ate zones artificially. These effects cannot compete in strength 
of contrast with those of the tropics; but their possibilities are 
not rich, and strong contrasts swallow up all shades. Thus I 
feel this evening as I look from the peak upon the expanse of 
the Chinese Sea as if new forces had been born in me: I per- 
ceive delicacies and shades in colour and form which I missed 
altogether a few days ago. And the nature of the Far East 
induces a process like no other: in it the lines are of a purity, 
and the transitions of a neatness, such as are created among 
us only by the artist’s capacity for abstraction; this nature 
has already been stylised by God. Many of the most ex- 
quisite peculiarities of Chinese painting are already fore- 
shadowed in it. When I first looked out upon the evening 
sea, it seemed to me to be overcast by long white strips of mist. 
Imagine my surprise when, soon afterwards, I saw islands 
swimming above these very strips. No direct vision could have 
taught me that these islands were not suspended in the sky; 
in the presence of such nature a similar imagination is required 
in order to catch the connection of perspective, as in the case 
of Far-Eastern painting. 
I see it already: in China IJ will have to transform myself into 
a man of vision; here all appearance seethes with significance. 
- There looms, before my mind’s eye, a synthesis of essence 
and semblance such as I have never met with before. 





PART EIVEs; CHINA 





Y ene 


37 
CANTON 


NFORTUNATELY, I am beginning my stay in China in un- 
| Lea circumstances: the country is in full revolu- 
tion. Such periods are often called ‘great times,’? and many 
feed for the rest of their lives on the fact that they ‘participated’ 
in them: for those, however, who look below the surface, 
epochs of violent political upheaval are the least interesting of 
all. In the presence of extraordinary external events most men 
lose their balance; they live on the surface, which is not nor- 
mal for them, or in any way symbolical of their being; their 
essential qualities do not appear at all. What do the deeds of 
violence of the Terreur, or the July Revolution, mean in 
reference to the bourgeois of Paris who committed them? 
Nothing. They were the mere actors in an impulse of the 
masses. There are, of course, exceptional natures, real storm- 
birds, who can only be themselves altogether at such periods, 
and they are then highly interesting; but storm-birds are 
more rare than one thinks; in the case of the majority their 
behaviour in exceptional circumstances has not the slightest 
symbolical significance. Almost every gentleman shows cour- 
age in a moment of danger, so does almost every mother when 
her children are in peril, and, especially in Germany, almost 
every one acquits himself well in the face of the typical dangers 
to which he is exposed by profession: the captain when his 
vessel is sinking, the general in battle, the burgomaster if a 
plague is visited upon his town, etc. Only these people are 
themselves in no higher degree than in their normal state, 
but rather less so or not at all: they act not as individuals but 
as representatives; and very often, only too often, these typical 
actions imply concealment of their real selves, as in the case 
of the rhetoric of delinquents on the scaffold. If Napoleon 
attached importance only to the behaviour of his generals im 
extremis, this was due to the fact that in his case all decisions 
were taken in extremis, and he was indifferent to the men in 
themselves; if he had cared for their real being, he would have 

25 


26 CHINA PART V 


judged differently. Of course, this real being is not necessarily 
expressed within the frame of their daily existence, as Maeter- 
linck would have it, for this frame does not necessarily suit 
men; only a corresponding frame is in question, but such a 
frame cannot be, par definition, an exceptional one. In China 
least of all, the land of everlasting peace and order! I cannot 
take this revolution seriously, and, unless I am very much 
mistaken, no thorough-going Chinese does so in the sense in 
which it would appear a matter of course to Europeans; | 
have the impression that he looks upon it as revolutions ought 
to be regarded everywhere: as a crisis of the organism. The 
body does not get over certain stages of evolution without 
violence: it becomes ill, feverish, boils up; in this sense, revolu- 
tions are sometimes inevitable (although hardly half of those 
which appear in recent history belong to this category); the 
French Revolution, for one, corresponded undoubtedly to an 
inner necessity, no matter how little pleasing its consequences 
have proved themselves to be in general and for France in 
particular; for in no other way could the forms and institutions 
of the ancien régime be broken up, which had lived their time 
but which were strong precisely owing to their rigidity. Never- 
theless, even the most inevitable infantile disease never ranks 
with heroic acts. I can hardly suppress a smile when I hear the 
‘acts of the people’ glorified. China will not expose itself thus 
to ridicule. Nor will she revere Sun Yat-Sen asa hero for any 
length of time, which is what would undoubtedly happen in 
Europe; she will perhaps be grateful to him for what he has 
instigated, but for the rest she will not judge him otherwise 
than as he is: a good-natured, although not a harmless, the- 
oriser. 

It is not only in the sense of time, but also in that of space, 
that my start in China seems less auspicious than I would have 
hoped: in Canton the external side of life is so overwhelming 
and so importunate that it seems physically impossible to see 
through it. The official life, as such, is wholly uninteresting, 
because its forms are the expression, not of the soul, but of the 
objective necessities and conveniences of collective life, and 
thus hardly vary in significance, not only from people to people, 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 27 


but even as between men and animals. Much has been written 
concerning the strangeness of Chinese institutions: I find them 
only too similar to European ones; no matter how different 
they may be de facto, they differ hardly at all in meaning. In 
this vast commercial city, famous for its singularity, I am 
hardly aware that I am in strange surroundings. What might 
a Chinese metaphysician learn, conversely, in Berlin or Frank- 
fort? Little would he feel of the spirit, which, of course, is a 
different one there from here, in the turmoil of the town. He 
would notice rather less assiduity and work, and very much 
more restlessness, and he would probably reach the conclusion 
that we Europeans are people of a precisely similar kind, only 
on a lower level of culture. 

So as not to return empty-handed, I remove the metaphysi- 
cian and substitute for him the pure observer. In briskness of 
traffic, Canton beats everything that I have seen; there do 
not seem to be any idlers at all. And the uncanny thing is 
that all these beasts of burden wear a uniformly cheerful look. 
I am beginning to understand why the Chinese so easily appear 
inhuman to the European. If one compares men with apes, 
one should remember what the specifically grotesque element 
of the monkey consists in—the contrast between an eye of 
human intelligence and an animal face, for which reason every 
extremely intelligent and, simultaneously, vivacious eye in a 
human face always suggests something monkey-like, even in 
the case of a man like Kant. The Cantonese do not make an 
animal impression, but they appear inhuman, because one feels 
that behind their existence, which, according to our view, is 
unworthy of human beings, there lies not coarse nature but 
deep culture. Their cheerfulness is a product of culture. .. . 
Whence the excessively unsympathetic aspect of this city? I 
find it really impossible to gain clear impressions. It cannot 
be due to the filth and stench, to which one can object no more 
in China than in Italy: they belong to the peculiar character, 
and even to the specific charm; in the end I almost came to be 
fond of the exhalations of Benares, really painful in them- 
selves. Still less can it be due to the specifically Chinese char- 
acter, for this seems, on the contrary, to be very sympathetic. 


28 CHINA PART V 


It is due probably to the extremely commercial atmosphere. 
I have never lived for any length of time among business 
people of the smaller sort without experiencing a disturbance 
of my equilibrium. This consideration, however, does not 
decide the question either. . . . At last I have it: what strikes 
me as particularly repulsive in Canton is the soulless machine- 
like quality of its life. These beings act in the profoundest 
sense without aim or purpose; they lack altogether what con- 
stitutes the idealism of the business man: acting subject to great 
points of view; they wear themselves out like ants. And when 
ants, who are certainly only ants, have highly intelligent faces 
and are simultaneously undoubtedly cultured, the result is 
disquieting. 

It cannot be true, what is asserted so often, that the heart of 
China beats in Canton. Canton is no more typical of this 
Empire than Marseilles or Naples are of Europe. But to that 
extent it probably is typical, and perhaps it is a good thing 
that this side of China has been presented to me first and in so 
ageressive a form because I would otherwise have overlooked 
it in the midst of all the beauty which is before me. Undoubt- 
edly the Chinese is closer to the ant than any other human 
being; undoubtedly he is below us in this very sense. But here 
too is the root of his unintelligible superiority: the enormous 
social culture of the lowest strata of the people. There is no 
worker among the ants who in culture, in its own sphere, did 
not equal the greatest Grand Seigneur. 


ae 


I am now so much at home here that the negative sensa- 
tions which Canton continues to evoke in me hardly disturb 
my contemplations any more. Whatever may be said against 
it, this town is beautiful. Everything decorative is of a perfec- 
tion such as I have never seen elsewhere. The art of the gold- 
smith, the ebony and ivory carver—whatever belongs to the 
arts and crafts—is on an incredibly high level; the most sub- 
ordinate artisan here seems to possess taste in the highest sense. 
And when I then see what poor, dry fellows these marvellous 
artisans are, I feel disconcerted every time. Obviously tie 
whole of this culture no longer means anything at all in ref- 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 29 


erence to the individual; all accomplishment is based upon rou- 
tine. Automatically my thoughts wander back to the distant 
times when the present rigid forms were still vibrating with 
life. . . . Then, however, I ask myself whether forms of per- 
fect beauty have ever prevailed before they had detached them- 
selves from their meaning? Florence, in the days when Leo- 
nardo and Michael Angelo were at work in it, could not have 
been nearly as beautiful as in the period of her decadence; 
during the time that the form was being created it did not 
exist. Thus, the China of to-day is very likely far more in- 
teresting to look at than that of the Tang dynasty. ... 

The Chinese, who in their early days were mighty creators, 
have apparently lost their inventive powers. It is all the more 
significant that they have not degenerated—in the sphere of 
art any more than in that of life—which is what happens nearly 
always at times of stagnation in the West; in their case the 
following of tradition seems rather to be the biological equiva- 
lent of invention. All that could exist in an unformed state 
is already crystallised in China, for which reason new creations, 
for a time at any rate, have become impossible. If, however, 
the same phenomena appear again and again, showing undi- 
minished power, then this signifies anything rather than steril- 
ity: it is the way of nature, which also keeps, through im- 
measurable distances of time, to the same manifestations, before 
it decides upon innovations. One must evidently judge the 
culture of the Chinese according to geological epochs in order 
to do justice to it. Just so their antipathy to innovation will 
have to be interpreted: essentially they are certainly not anti- 
pathetic to innovation, for in the course of history China has 
undergone transformations as great as those of Europe; only 
it has been in less of a hurry. And on the whole it is not a 
good sign, but a bad one, if some one evinces too much haste. 
It can, of course, mean that he has placed his aim so high that 
he must not lose a minute if he is to attain to it at all; generally, 
however, it only means that he anticipates his end... . 


+ 


THE unheard-of beauty of form and colour of the streets and 
byways of Canton impresses me more and more; the most 


30 CHINA PART V 


exquisite culture of the senses speaks from all manifestations; 
there is hardly a household implement, hardly an arabesque, 
which in idea at any rate does not possess artistic value, no 
matter how often its execution fails. After sundown in par- 
ticular the town has the effect of fairyland, like an immense 
symphony in black and gold. All over the city, beautifully 
shaped luminous bodies stand out from the black background 
of night, and everywhere fiery ideograms shine out into the 
darkness. } 

I could never see enough of them. They are so lovely in 
form that Chinese streets delight the eye, thanks to their shop 
notices and advertisements alone. How could writing and 
painting not be valued equally here? Even in idea, the highest 
art is contained in these hieroglyphics; and in order to present 
them in the way in which they are always demanded and in 
which they frequently occur, the hand of a real artist is needed. 
Connoisseurs often pay as much for a beautiful piece of hand- 
writing as for a masterpiece of painting. 

I will hardly be making a mistake if I trace the high level of 
culture of the Chinese, as far as visible form is concerned, in 
large measure to the existence of their system of writing. Not 
only do they live from their earliest youth in surroundings 
which must develop their sense of form—it implies a necessity 
of life for them to pay minute attention to form. There is no 
Chinese language in the vocal sense; a special dialect is spoken 
in every region, which often differs from that of another no 
less than English differs from German. AI] Chinese, however, 
employ the same written signs, and can, by their means, com- 
municate with each other where they can no longer do so 
verbally; how could the writing of characters then not be 
studied thoroughly? Once this has been done, its further 
advantages follow of their own accord. The intrinsic beauty 
of the ideogram unconsciously educates their taste, all the more 
so as it is regarded as ill-bred not to have a beautiful hand- 
writing, and the necessity of differentiating instantaneously a 
large number of such ideograms, whose marks often consist 
of the tiniest details, sharpens the vision of the eye. The in- 
capacity of the educated Chinaman for producing anything 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 31 


ugly, and the unrivalled standard of the sense for form which 
is possessed by the masses in China, are undoubtedly the direct 
consequences of the prevalence of this system of writing. 

But its advantages are not exhausted by the enumeration of 
those which have been mentioned; I admire the system above 
all on account of its mental significance. An idea can gener- 
ally be expressed within this system only symbolically, not 
objectively, or in and by itself; the symbolic image of a con- 
ceptual relation is painted, and from its connection with a pre- 
ceding or succeeding symbol the meaning of what has been 
intended is made plain. In such circumstances it is impossible, 
first of all, to read without thinking at the same time; hence 
the surprising power of combination which even the lowest 
Chinaman betrays, who is capable of reading and writing. 
Then, of course, much more can be said by means of ideograms 
than by means of articulated means of expression. Only people 
who have never produced a profound thought assert that we 
know how to say exactly what we mean in all circumstances; 
the language does not exist which could make this marvel 
possible. Every epoch has its specific barriers, from which no 
genius can escape, and every language possesses special ones 
in and by itself. And that one should ever be invented in 
which it would be possible to express everything with absolute 
exactitude, seems all the less probable as the tendency of 
development lies in the direction of explicitness, and hence in 
the direction of impoverishment; it is not possible to say as 
much in French as in German, in modern English one cannot 
say as much as in that of the Elizabethan Age. So much is 
already true of that which in principle can be explained: but 
what about that which goes beyond all possible forms of 
expression, and yet is the most real portion of reality—the 
objects of metaphysical thought and of the innermost religious 
experience? ‘These things simply cannot be rendered in our 
languages. But they can be represented in Chinese writing. 
It is possible to place symbols of conceptual relations side by 
side in such a way that they include, as well as qualify, the in- 
finite, just as an open angle defines infinite space. Where one 
of the scientes sees these signs in front of him, he knows at 


32 CHINA PART V 


once what is meant, and he experiences, when he did not know 
it before, more than the longest explanation could teach him. 
To give an instance: the whole of Confucianism can be 
represented in three symbols (which are to be read in con- 
junction); the first of these means concentrating, making an 
effort, the second means the centre, and the third external 
harmony. By means of these really everything is expressed 
which is contained in the Four Books, and, moreover, that 
which is at the bottom of Confucianism in idea, but which its 
founder probably did not realise at all. What, in fact, could 
a mortal do more than to become perfectly inward by the 
extremest tension of the powers of his soul, and to express the 
inwardness attained to in the harmony of external appearance. 
This is not only the essence of Confucianism, it is more than 
Confucius ever guessed, it is the supreme ideal of human 
aspiration. Oh, if only I knew how to write Chinese! Gladly 
would I then give up all other means of expression. After all 
words have passed away, blessed spirits will still see Truth 
before their eyes in fragments of Chinese calligraphy. .. . 
The Chinese method of expression is not objective or exact, 
but suggestive, and presupposes a sympathetic hearer or 
listener, in the same way as the figurative method of expression 
of women. This is in many ways an inconvenience: not only 
because it makes practical arrangements more diffcult—un- 
doubtedly it is less to suggest than to pronounce clearly what 
one means; our own poets and writers, who aim at suggesting 
effects, therefore are not above, but below, our explicit ones; 
thus Stephane Mallarmé stands below Baudelaire. This dis- 
advantage expresses itself particularly in philosophy, whose 
intrinsic problem it is to render clear what everybody may 
surmise only indistinctly. Accordingly, scientific recognition 
can only be represented imperfectly in Chinese writing. 
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to accuse it as one does 
Mallarmé’s of the feminine method of expression. For 
ideograms are means of expression of a different kind from 
words or from our writing: they are comparable with mathe- 
matical formulas. They may be described as insufficient by the 
man who is simple enough to demand that they shall define in 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 33 


themselves every particular result whose law they determine: 
in reality they are more precise than any version of language 
could be, and they embrace, moreover, a great deal more be- 
sides. That is precisely what is true, in so far as one can read 
them, of Chinese formulas expressed in writing. Certainly 
they do not determine directly, but they define the possible so 
clearly that, in connection with other possibilities, the reality in 
question is made absolutely plain. Thus, the Chinese language 
of writing for many purposes is not below but above ours, 
because, like mathematics, it can express relations directly which 
escape all linguistic confines. What ‘significance’ really stands 
alone? A thousand over- and undertones mingle their sounds, 
and we must silence them if we want to be clear; Chinese writ- 
ing remains univocal, although no overtone appears to be sub- 
dued. At the same time, it robs reality of nothing of its colour, 
which is the fate of mathematical formulas. All the sayings 
of the sages of China are characterised by a certain tendency 
towards paradox. This is a matter of course in so far as all 
truth must seem paradoxical to the unlearned, and as remote 
truths in particular can only be represented in powerful con- 
trapuntal opposition—but surely the nature of Chinese para- 
dox is very strange: it has a humorous touch; I know no ex- 
pression of Chinese wisdom which does not make me laugh 
heartily in certain moods. Why is this? If I disregard the 
national temperament, or if I trace it back to general principles, 
I find that in these sayings the colour of harmonious life seems 
to be transferred to the cosmos. There are few profounder 
things than humour; it is possessed by him who knows how to 
give expression to a profound opposition from the point of 
view of a beneficent and serene mind. Thus the hieroglyphic 
writing of the Chinese gives a humorous setting to the whole 
cosmos; thus the mécanique céleste is translated into epigram. 

As long as China retains her system of writing there is no 
danger that, in one direction at any rate, the spirit will be 
killed by the letter: for here significance creates all the facts. 
And I do not believe that this system will ever be replaced by 
a more modern one, although it may be expected that China, 
like Japan, will supply itself, for business purposes, with a 


34 CHINA PART V 


handier system. At any rate, it would be folly to believe that 
the substitution of our own writing for the Chinese would in- 
volve progress, for that which is thus called progress is not the 
victory of mind over matter, but its opposite. What could 
signify a greater triumph of matter than that the mind should 
be forced to adjust itself entirely to it? 


a 


to-pay I visited the place where, quite recently, executions 
of the most horrifying cruelty took place daily. Quite sud- 
denly it has all become a matter of the past: torture has been 
abolished, and in all probability for ever. This innovation—to 
modern European ideas an event of immense importance— 
seems to have been decided upon and introduced just like any 
tariff reform: the members of a committee calculated that 
humaneness would pay better in the given circumstances. No 
one in China seems to see anything special in this change in 
the method of justice, not even those most nearly concerned, 
the delinquents. Only the guild of executioners is said to 
demur, because their experts have now been put into an un- 
happy position. 

While I tarried on the scene of so many torments, my 
thoughts naturally dwelt upon the meaning of cruelty in kill- 
ing, and this led me to the conclusion that, theoretically, it was 
very well justified; no worse, at any rate, than the refinements 
of the pleasures of love. In both cases it is not a question of a 
direct increase of feeling, but of an indirect one: through the 
mental images which are related with it. Where death, as is 
the case everywhere in the East, does not seem terrifying in 
itself, it is natural to set the stage as impressively as possible, 
so that the execution shall not fail altogether of its deterrent 
effect. In every circumstance the meaning of killing by tor- 
ture does not centre in the man who suffers it, but in him who 
beholds, or could suffer it—that is to say, the man who only 
imagines 1t—just as even the most horribly tortured indi- 
vidual in all probability does not suffer anything like as horribly 
as the sympathetic observer imagines. In the case of the actual 
sufferer, the absolute greatness of the pain soon kills the 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 35 


whole of his power of imagination, and with it the possibility 
of relating the sensations of the moment with those of the past 
and the future; once this has happened, once consciousness 
is only filled by the present, then the worst torture can hardly 
be felt to be worse than the treatment of a diseased tooth 
by a brutal dentist. I have had considerable opportunity 
of experimenting in the sphere of painful sensations, and I 
have found that hardly bearable pain can, without further ado, 
be halved by transferring the centre of one’s consciousness— 
that is to say, by diversion of the attention as such, or by the 
exclusion of imaginative processes which enhance the facts; in 
addition, there is the further meliorating circumstance that 
man accustoms himself even to pain, and is incapable of ex- 
periencing it beyond a certain degree: when he does not faint, 
he becomes numb. This consideration is confirmed by all 
experience which has been made in the case of torture. First 
of all, coarse individuals suffer less than delicately organised 
ones, simply because their power of imagination is less; then, 
martyred Chinese in particular betray incredible calm, because 
they see nothing terrible in torture; and finally, undoubtedly 
sensitive natures have endured tortures in the Middle Ages 
surprisingly well. If torture, therefore, should have its mean- 
ing in the delinquents and not in those who watch it or think 
of it, then its invention and introduction would have been 
based upon a misunderstanding. 

This serves to explain the fact that otherwise highly cultured 
nations have adhered to cruel methods of execution for so 
long; where the theory that punishment is to act above all as 
a deterrent is accepted at all—and where is it not accepted?— 
torture seems justified in principle, and it depends rather on 
considerations of expediency than on those of humaneness, if 
and when torture is abolished. For this reason, there is prob- 
ably no great inner difference between us, who took this step 
over a hundred years ago, and the Chinese, who followed 
our example only last week, and this consideration removes a 
great deal of the paradoxical character of the Chinese attitude 
to this reform, to which I pointed at the beginning of these 
observations. Even in Europe the system rather than the men 


36 CHINA PART V 


has been humanised. ‘Those who believe in progress do not 
know how to differentiate as clearly as might be desired be- 
tween these two factors: it is permissible only in the rarest of 
cases to draw conclusions from the system to the man who 
acts in accordance with it. A judge who ordered the appli- 
cation of extraordinary torture in the Middle Ages does not 
need to have been 4 worse man than a humane judge in our 
day, whereas, conversely, the humaneness of the latter need 
not signify anything in reference to his being; even execution- 
ers are not infrequently kindly people. The average man 
always regards as fair what he is accustomed to; the man who 
first pointed to the inhumanity of torture need not necessarily 
have been an angel, but he was certainly a most original person. 
Marcus Aurelius felt no hesitation in being present at the 
cruel fights in the circuses; in the modern sense even Luther 
did not feel humanely; St. Theresa, one of the most glorious 
souls who have ever lived, found nothing to object to in the 
methods of justice of Philip II and only saw generosity at 
work in the war of destruction against the Aztecs, which we 
count amongst the most disgraceful which man has perpe- 
trated.—One thing, however, is probably correct: all Asiatics, 
and among these the Chinese in the first place, lack the capacity 
for sympathy remarkably. Even Buddha’s ‘compassion’ was 
not sympathy in our sense of the word; it contained no stimu- 
lus to help; no modern Indian, in so far as he is not Western 
in spirit, seems to possess that imagination of the heart which 
makes a torture of witnessing inactively the suffering of others; 
and no Chinese, above all, is capable of sympathy in the Chris- 
tian sense. Are we concerned here with physiological differ- 
ences? Probably only in so far as self-consciousness in the 
East has its centre in the individual less than among us, and 
for this reason individual suffering seems, relatively speaking, 
indifferent; on the whole, the difference is due to psychic 
causes. It depends on the fact that the recognition of the 
solidarity of all life, which, as such, they possess in a high 
degree, has taken hold of their sensibility less than among us, 
that the tat twam asi, not embodied in any commandments, 
laws and institutions, inspires the involuntary impulses of their 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 37 


soul to a lesser degree. By nature all men are unsympathetic 
towards everything which does not concern their person, and 
cruelty is especially nearer to men than humaneness. This is 
due to the primitive animal instinct of malicious joy at the 
sufferings of others, which is the first deduced function of 
assent to the fight for existence. Every being lives objectively 
at the expense of others; even at the level of a dog’s conscious- 
ness, this produces subjectively a feeling of heightened vitality, 
where others are worse off than one is oneself; the step from 
here to intentional torture is not far. For this reason, atrocities 
are committed on the part of humane people regularly as often 
as the brute gains the upper hand in them in war. Will the 
tendency to cruelty ever be overcome? I do not venture to 
prognosticate. Of all Europeans only the Englishman is 
habitually so advanced that he experiences natural disgust in 
causing others to suffer, or in watching them suffering—but 
even in his case, this is only true where circumstances are favour- 
able to his nerves; even he becomes brutal in tropical Africa. 
On the whole, the tendency to cruelty among us seems to be 
repressed rather than outgrown. But one day we may get so 
far that the human consciousness will be definitely decentralised 
from the level at which one being lives at the expense of an- 
other, into the higher realm where the suffering of one hap- 
pens to all, where one man’s gain is to the advantage of every- 
body. Then, and only then, will the beast have been over- 
come. 


+ 


THE soldiers have destroyed the images of gods in most of 
the temples, and the mass of the people do not regard this as a 
sacrilege. From the point of view of the Church the Chinese 
are undoubtedly irreligious; and as pronounced intellectuals, 
they assume a sceptical position towards all myths of the be- 
yond. The attitude of most cultured people towards theological 
questions is that of Confucius, that it is superfluous and deroga- 
tory to concern oneself with transcendental problems; the sig- 
nificance of the world manifests itself in natural and tangible 
phenomena completely. That the Chinese are irreligious in a 


38 CHINA PART V 


profounder sense is certainly not true, and I will return to this 
point later on. But this much seems certain, that divine service 
does not mean anything religious to them; what we see here is 
nothing but superstition and magic. I felt surprised at the fact 
that even the cultured individuals in this country, in which 
public opinion in ecclesiasticis is so free, participate to a certain, 
and by no means small, degree in temple rites and religious 
performances, and I tried to get to the bottom of the meaning 
of these facts. The result was very extraordinary: the temples 
mean to them just about what boards of agriculture and eco- 
nomic councils mean to us, and the priests are more or less 
equivalent to our engineers. They are the experts who have 
got to regulate the intercourse with the world of spirits. 

I, for one, find this idea not superficial but profound, even 
if it is expressed somewhat grotesquely, which happens so 
often from our point of view in China. Even to the Indians 
the gods are not transcendental beings, in the sense of the 
Christian God, but natural phenomena of a higher kind, and 
ritual exists in order to maintain good relations with them. 
But the Indians are so religious in the Church sense that they 
credit the gods subconsciously with more than corresponds 
with their strict ideas of them; thus, even the Kali cult does not 
seem essentially different from that of Christian worship. The 
Chinese, on the other hand, who are practical and matter of 
fact, have drawn every possible conclusion from the premises 
which could be drawn from them: if there are demons, and if it 
is possible to change their unwelcome effectiveness into one 
that is welcome, then it must of course be done; there must be 
institutions and people who undertake this important business 
professionally. And this is the meaning of the Church. 

It is impossible to believe how busy the technicians are who 
have to appease the demons. China literally teems with spirits, 
to such an extent that the comfort of life suffers seriously from 
the disturbances which unceasing consideration of them re- 
quires. One can neither bury nor marry when one likes nor 
where one likes, nor even those whom one wants to: everything 
is dependent upon incommensurabilities. A missionary whom 
I met once asked a high official, with the intention of taking 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 39 


away his belief in spirits, why it was that such spirits did not 
exist in Europe. He thereupon received the reply: if nobody 
in Europe believes in spirits, then of course they do not exist 
there; he personally was very much in favour of their dis- 
appearing from China, but this was hardly to be expected 
because the belief in them was too general to die out soon. He 
meant that they were objectively real in China because people 
believed very strongly in them. And, in fact, this seems to 
be so: whatever can be interpreted as the intervention of 
spirits, such as being possessed, or under a magic spell, etc., 
takes place in China more often than anywhere else—How 
subtle was that Mandarin! He was no less so than the Brahmin 
who answered, in reply to the question as to what was the 
use of praying to gods, as they were only natural phenom- 
ena of an unsubstantial and transient kind: Prayers are useful 
so that the gods may be strengthened. He meant the same 
thing, that no matter whether they represent objective or 
only subjective realities, a link is at any rate created by faith- 
ful prayer, through which the mental image can affect the man 
who prays.—No, I cannot blame in the Chinese what almost 
all European residents and travellers blame in him, I cannot see 
a sign of superficiality in it, quite the contrary. The Chinese, 
at any rate, see farther into the meaning of things than those 
progressive Frenchmen whose latter-day persecution of Chris- 
tians can only be described as insipid. Chinese superstition 
is more profound than modern lack of faith. But, of course, 
better and more advantageous consequences could be drawn 
from the depths of this insight than the Chinese have known 
- how to do up to the present. 


+ 


GOETHE wrote somewhere how intensely a single clever say- 
ing had furthered him. Something similiar happened to me 
to-day: the accidental acquaintance with an apparently in- 
different fact has made me cover a good piece of the road to- 
wards the understanding of the Chinese. 

What disturbed me more and more was the impassiveness of 
this people, their uncanny equanimity. The calm of the Indians 
does not surprise me, nor that of the Turks: the former lack 


40 CHINA PART V 


vitality and energy, and the latter are phlegmatic by tem- 
perament. But the Chinese are not phlegmatic at all, no matter 
how calmly they demean themselves, and they are vital to 
the tips of the fingers. How is it possible that their masses 
can give such an impression of serenity?—I am told of un- 
controllable outbreaks of anger, which are said to be more 
violent even than those related concerning Scandinavian ber- 
serkers. They say that it happens from time to time, that a 
man gets into so thorough a rage that it takes several days 
ere he gets back his equanimity; in the meantime he is said to 
be furious as bulls are furious, absolutely irrespective of the 
cause. The Chinese explain this phenomenon as due to the 
accumulation of the substance of anger, Ch’. Many diseases 
are traced back to it, and European doctors confirm the correct- 
ness of the theory in its general outline: in fact, many dis- 
turbances in the Chinese organism, some that end fatally, are 
believed to be due to repressed rage. 

Now the placidity of the mass is no longer an insoluble riddle 
tome. Every one knows that the giants of action, like Cesar, 
Napoleon, Mahomet, Alexander, Peter the Great, and even 
Bismarck, were subject more or less periodically to nerve crises, 
which assumed the shape sometimes of epilepsy, sometimes of 
fits of rage, sometimes of collapse or fits of crying, but have 
always been correctly regarded as what nerve-doctors call free- 
ing reactions. Temperaments of volcanic energy, which have to 
be continuously collected, require a safety-valve opened at 
certain intervals if they are not to burst; and the steam rushes 
forth from them all the more impetuously the more condensed 
it was. What is true of the heroes of action applies, within 
certain limits, to the Chinese as a people. They are, on the 
one hand, extraordinarily vital, and, on the other, they practise 
the greatest self-control of all people. Therefore it was to be 
expected, on an a@ priori basis, if nature was to remain nature, 
that occasional fits of fury must belong to the national character 
of the Chinese, and, moreover, fits of a much more violent 
kind than those which are natural to the people of Southern 
Europe, who habitually let themselves go. The facts of the 
matter are in accordance with the postulates of reason; I there- 


CHAP. 37 CANTON 41 


fore feel mentally satisfied. The Ch’: should be studied more 
in detail by psychologists. To-day the interaction between 
body and mind commands the centre of interest: it could be 
studied nowhere better than in the Far East, where self-dis- 
cipline has been carried furthest and where its boundaries— 
the boundaries which nature has set to culture—appear there- 
fore most clearly. Above all, I should like to see the following 
hypothesis tested by facts: the Chinese possess, unless I am 
very much mistaken, the greatest physical vitality of all human 
beings. Neither as individuals nor as a nation do they seem 
to be capable of exhaustion; they get over illnesses which 
would be fatal to other people, they can stand an excess of 
work (also of mental work) without evil consequences to their 
nerves, and the worst debauches harm them relatively little. 
The nation seems to be deteriorated to a considerable extent 
neither by over-culture, nor by inbreeding, nor by opium, nor 
by syphilis—in fact, by none of the things which ruin other 
peoples. The only general phenomenon of degeneration which 
can be observed among the cultured classes is their growing 
philistinism—and this is not regarded, for very good reasons, 
as pathological in Europe at all. Is this marvellous physical 
vitality not the consequence of psychic culture? It is a fact that 
cultured individuals can stand the wear and tear of war better 
than uncultured ones, that courageous men become less fre- 
quently diseased and take less harm than cowards, that the 
nerves of a self-disciplined man can offer greater resistance 
than those of the man who lets himself go, in short, that it 
is possible to make oneself immune from physical dangers by 
psychic measures; and the tendency of many schools of our 
time is in the direction of strengthening the body through the 
culture of the soul. Is the inherited vitality of the Chinese not 
due to the same cause? They have practised self-control for 
thousands of years, forced to do so by external circumstances, 
and encouraged in it by a wise moral system; and in the process 
has not that become inherited property which among us is 
acquired only through personal effort by favoured individuals? 
—Of course, it must not be forgotten that in China natural 
selection has assisted the building up of the race more than 


42 CHINA PART V 


anywhere else, and that this alone explains a great deal; weak 
natures are hardly capable of life in China. 


38 
MACAU 


HAVE escaped from the busy turmoil of Canton into the 
| hese idyllic and peaceful place which exists in the Far East: 
I have reached the delightfully situated Macau, where Camoéns 
completed his Lusiadas. To what a remarkable extent the 
atmosphere of China has taken possession of me! Asa matter 
of course the reaction against city life expresses itself in my 
soul by quietistic thoughts 4 Ja Laotse and Djuang Tse; for 
there can be no doubt that the extreme form of the quietism of 
these men must be understood as a reaction against the ex- 
tremes of sociability and bustle which characterised China even 
in their day. When I re-read their writings here, then I feel as 
if I were listening to the echo of my own self. The same 
moods in Indian or European colouring would strike me as 
heterogeneous, nay even as tactless. 

What is it which gives its special character to Chinese mysti- 
cism?—Certainly not its meanings, its substance; in this direc- 
tion it agrees with the wisdom of all peoples of all time. It is 
partially its method of expression. I will not expand further 
on this subject, as it is a direct function of the Chinese system 
of writing. In just the same way, Taoistic philosophy does not 
express definite thoughts so much as their ultimate signifi- 
cance. And since this significance alone partakes of immor- 
tality, whereas all conceptual embodiments must pass away 
sooner or later, this fact brings about an absolute superiority 
of the Chinese expressions of supreme truth; they alone will 
continue to live as they stand; that which can be said of other 
literatures only in the case of some rare sentences applies in 
principle to all the expressions of Chinese wisdom. But I am 
not concerned to-day with these objective things: I am too 
tired after Canton, too needful of rest. And then Macau is 
much too beautiful for me to enjoy the examination of abstract 


CHAP. 38 MACAU 43 


questions. When I think of Laotse to-day, I do not see the 
harbinger of eternal truth in front of me, but a genial old gen- 
tleman with a twinkle in his eye, with his unending flow of 
humour, his winning Lonhomie; and if I stop to ponder about 
the peculiarity of his wisdom I mean its concrete peculiarity, 
that which is specifically Chinese in it. This is mainly ex- 
pressed in the keynote of caution and circumspection which 
resound from even the sublimest sentences of Chinese wisdom. 
They will put up with anything rather than unpleasantness, 
calculate everything in advance to a nicety, they organise 
everything beforehand; they would rather place their light 
under a bushel than draw attention to themselves by their 
luminosity, they prefer to appear weak rather than strong, 
they believe in giving way in all circumstances.—This is just as 
typical of the Chinese as longing for peace at any cost is typical 
of the Indian, and active optimism of the Westerner. This 
trait cannot possibly be sympathetic to me. But since I have 
been in Canton I understand it so well that I am almost pre- 
pared for the moment to make it my own. How could a man 
become proud and free after the manner of the Greek sages, 
or serenely detached in the sense of the Rishi, when it is liter- 
ally impossible’to keep at a distance from the masses? Within 
the masses the wise man has no choice but to be cunning if he 
wants to live a more or less supportable life. The Westerner in 
such cases generally wears the mask of a charlatan, because our 
plebs permit gladly to an eccentric, owing to their love of what 
is new and unusual, what they would never forgive a sage, so 
that his best policy is to let his wisdom appear as folly. In 
China, where anything out of the ordinary is condemned in all 
circumstances, the remarkable individual has no choice but 
to avoid all friction with the crowd, and this can only be done 
at the expense of his pride. Hence the extreme enmity to 
culture and society on the part of the few who have neverthe- 
less succeeded in withdrawing from the masses: it would be 
inhuman if they had overcome this last shred of resentment. 
How much is explained in China by over-population! And 
how instructive are the effects which this has had upon the 
Chinese temperament, for us white men who will also, sooner 


44 CHINA PART V 


or later, develop into a compact mass! China undoubtedly 
owes its immense moral culture to it, and in this respect it still 
excels the rest of humanity. It is impossible to flourish as an 
uncultured individual when men are packed together as closely 
as they generally are in China; there, a boor is scarcely less 
appalling than a criminal, who is a danger to the whole com- 
munity, isamong'us. But, on the other hand, what a disadvan- 
tage this is! How is an original personality to be developed in 
the midst of such mass suggestion? How, above all, is he to 
gain authority? Even among us, a genius by no means necessa- 
rily fulfils his destiny; in China such a thing can only happen 
thanks to an extraordinarily auspicious accident. No matter 
how much talent a man may have in a small, out-of-the-way 
village—how is he to work his way up if so many millions stand 
in his way? In such circumstances resignation from the start 
means indeed the only salutary course... . 


+ 


I u1Ke the Chinese here ever so much more than I did those 
of Canton. The tradesmen, of course, cheat me with equal 
success here as there, but that is not the point; in the Chinese 
quarter of Macau the same atmosphere predominates which is 
so homely and attractive in the style of Kung Fu-Tse: it is the 
atmosphere of a cheerful bourgeois existence, possessing an 
extreme sense of form. How little it matters what people 
actually do! Christ preferred to associate with publicans and 
sinners. What actually happens in the world is probably 
without any significance.—The continuous rattling of the gong 
in Chinese theatres has ultimately the same effect as silence: 
just so it is most likely no matter in itself whether one 
lives in the desert or in a capital. The air of Paris remains 
stimulating, no matter how silly the behaviour of its inhabi- 
tants may be; that of St. Petersburg drains one’s soul, no matter 
whom one may associate with. The psychic atmosphere of a 
town is the result of so many component parts that the indi- 
vidual component is of no account; just because there are so 
many of them, the general atmosphere inevitably gives a pic- 
ture of the real average. And here I notice to-day, first of all, 


CHAP. 38 MACAU 45 


what I have never felt with equal clarity anywhere else, how- 
ever familiar I am with its theory: that originally there is no 
necessary connection between action and being. 

This is one of the fundamental views of the Indians. As in 
so many cases, here, too, something which has been recognised 
and understood more profoundly in India is better translated 
into life in China; besides, it is easier to understand in China 
because the Chinese, no matter what people say, are much 
closer to us in culture, for which reason it is easier to judge 
correctly of the differences. Among Europeans who live alto- 
gether externally, being is necessarily influenced by action, 
and accordingly intercourse is as a rule only agreeable with 
those who practise a noble profession. In Europe the ruling 
individual stands on the highest human level, as it is his duty 
to act unselfishly on a large scale; the artist, who usually be- 
lieves in distorted ideals, is unpleasant to deal with, and the 
business man is repugnant everywhere unless his far-reaching 
schemes do not drive him, in spite of himself, beyond his pro- 
fessional thieving. In the East there is in general no necessary 
connection between professional activity and being, and I am 
more distinctly aware of this here than ever. I have been 
observing the traders closely who draw my money out of my 
pocket with so much skill: no matter how great an allowance 
one may make for friendliness as a portion of business tech- 
nique, I am convinced that many of these pedlars only carry 
out their business and are not identified with it. They may 
be on a high level as human beings. 

The German understands this connection only with difficulty. 
Here he must learn from the Russian, the only European who 
originally possesses a direct relation to the soul of his neigh- 
bour. Why should a man be bad, however much he may lie 
and deceive? One must certainly take measures to protect one- 
self; one should not let oneself be deceived, and where the 
other party is too strong one should restrain him by law, so 
that authority shall render him harmless. But it is barbarous 
to judge a man’s being by his actions. For who has got to the 
stage in which his actions are the complete expression of his 
soul? I have never seen such a man. And where being and 


46 CHINA PART V 


action do not harmonise, the man who lies and deceives be- 
cause custom permits it is equivalent in every way to the other 
man who behaves justly from conventional motives. For him 
who knows there is no difference between a ‘pillar of society’ 
and a dishonest pedlar, in so far as neither of them are what 
they do: if anything, the latter stands on a higher level in so 
far as he has no ideals and therefore cannot be unfaithful to 
them. I know it is not without danger to say such things; all 
the more so as virtuous action does in the end influence the 
soul, and vice versa; the Indians would have got farther than 
they have done if they did not differentiate so clearly and 
acutely between action and being. But these are considerations 
of practical politics which do not concern me for the moment. 


+ 


LAOTSE Says: 


He who recognises his light 
And yet remains in the dark, 
He is the model of the world. 


The model. . . . Ido not know whether Richard Wilhelm’s 
translation is exact here, but I should not be surprised. In this 
instance the gulf which divides our conceptions of the world 
(in which it is regarded as sinful to hide one’s light under a 
bushel) from that of the Taoists can be surveyed with particular 
distinctness. 

If the word were not ‘model,’ but ‘mirror, then nothing 
could be said against this dictum. Unconscious creation without 
intention, marching onwards without wanting to get on, being 
content with given circumstances—this is, in fact, Nature’s 
way; and the man who follows consciously in her traces can 
very well be described as her mirror. But as her model? Only 
if nothing higher can be conceived than the way of nature. 
This is, in fact, the presupposition of the whole of Chinese 
wisdom. Whereas, we recognise a domain of freedom above 
nature, whereas we regard it as our duty to graft the spirit of 
freedom upon the limitations of nature, with the result that 
the natural static equilibrium does not present itself to us as an 
ideal but as a condition which must be overcome, and that 


CHAP. 38 MACAU 47 


creation as opposed to obedience, overcoming as opposed to 
surrender, willing in general as opposed to not willing, seem 
to us to embody the higher value—the Chinese have arrived at 
precisely the opposite conclusion. Thus we arrive, in the ex- 
treme case, at the paradoxical situation that the enlightened 
individual regards it as his mission to hide his light under a 
bushel. 

Taoist wisdom is reproached on this account again and again 
with unfruitful quietism, not least by the Confucianists, who 
are ultimately of one spirit with it. There is no doubt that 
Chinese wisdom fails in the self-conscious formation of this 
life, just as creative work is opposed to its principle. It cannot 
be denied, however, that the works of the Taoist classics con- 
tain, perhaps, the profoundest sayings of wisdom which we 
possess, the profoundest precisely from the angle of our ideal, 
the ideal of creative autonomy. How is this possible? It is 
possible because the Tao, ‘Significance’ (as Richard Wilhelm 
has translated it so admirably )—is expressed in natural proc- 
esses more perfectly than in the freest way of freedom; so that 
a life cannot but lead to perfection which reflects altogether the 
sway of the forces of nature. 


Heaven is eternal and the Earth enduring. 
The cause of Heaven’s and Earth’s eternal duration is 
That they do not live for themselves. 
Therefore they can perpetually give Life. 
Just so the Elected one: 
He places his self hindmost, 
And it comes foremost. 
He renounces his self 
And his self remains preserved. 
Is it not thus: 
Just because he does not care for his own, 
Does that, which is his own, become perfected? 


These glorious lines of Laotse are true in spite of the myth- 
ical relation which he affirms between heaven and man, because 
here the processes of nature are understood according to their 


48 CHINA PART V 


profoundest meaning, and because there is no difference in 
meaning between vegetative and divine life. The call: back to 
nature! understood in this way, has always advanced men. 
Even where it has been wrongly understood, as in the case of 
Rousseau, and also several later Taoists, it has only rarely done 
harm, because Nature is perfect in her sphere, and hence even 
superficial copying of her, a retrogression to her conditions as 
such, brings the man constricted by his concepts nearer to his 
vital centre. So much for the meaning of Taoist wisdom. I 
have already dealt with its unique significance of expression: 
of all the formulas of metaphysical reality which have been 
discovered hitherto, the Chinese ones alone are probably im- 
mortal. As to the human type which it produces, it possesses 
that hybrid nature which is characteristic of the artist as well: 
in the best case he belongs to the highest of which men are 
capable; in all other manifestations except the highest, he 
seems inferior to other types. No matter how great a Laotse 
may have been—the average Taoist was probably always a 
mediocre fellow. 

We, at any rate, must regard him as such, because in our 
eyes it is the mission of man to rise above the plane of Nature. 
If we too honour a Laotse as one of the greatest of men, it is 
due to the fact that he has penetrated appearance altogether, 
and has thus gone beyond the limitations of nature as well as 
excelled the mission of men. I suggested above that the 
Confucians also regard the Taoists as a low type, whereas the 
opposition between Confucian and Taoist wisdom does not 
seem so very great to us; this is due to the Chinese element in 
both schools. Thus I have arrived once more at the point at 
which I left off yesterday. This wisdom is, after all, Chinese 
wisdom, and to this extent not supernational and difficult for 
us to do justice to. If I therefore say that the average Taoist 
is an inferior fellow, I possibly only express, with this per- 
emptory judgment, my limitations as a European. 


+ 


I amuse myself at the hour of the siesta by reading the Liao- 
tshai-tshi-i, the ‘curious stories from the den of refuge’ of Pu 


CHAP. 38 MACAU 49 


Sung-ling, the ‘last of the immortals’ of China. The quality 
of humour which appears in this work is exquisite; real or 
possible events seem to be related quite calmly and profession- 
ally, even with a certain dryness, but the stories are told in 
such a way that they inevitably strike the reader as funny, 
although the intention is not apparent. In inner value the 
humour of Gogol is equivalent to that of the Chinese, but that 
for which there is no equivalent in European literature since 
the days of the Greeks is the literary mastery by which it has 
been found possible to achieve humorous effects out of the 
pure form without calling any material circumstances to aid. 
At first sight the humorous element does not seem capable of 
presentment in a severe form. China proves the error of such 
an opinion. 

I gain my impression from a translation, which is presumably 
bad: on what a high level must the original be placed if the 
translation has failed to rob it of its nature! Even now I can 
understand very well why cultured Chinese who possess a 
command of European languages will only admit ancient 
Greek literature as real art and as almost equivalent to that of 
China: the Greeks alone were simultaneously severe and rich 
in their method of expression. The strictness of the Latin 
form is exclusive—the only form to which the term of strength 
can be applied in the West since the days of Greece: form must 
be inclusive, it must melt, condense, and not mutilate but 
enhance its possible content, if its severity is to embody the 
highest value. It is true that the Chinese masters work in 
certain respects under more favourable conditions than any 
others: they can be severe in their forms without tracing 
definite boundaries. They owe this to their marvellous system 
of writing. As I have remarked already, it is possible in China 
literally to express as much, and even more, with three hier- 
oglyphics than can be said in our languages on many long 
pages—our masters of precision have all had to bury a great 
deal in silence; the Chinese artists have all the advantages on 
their side which the pure mathematician has as compared with 
the physicist in science. And the disadvantage which is in- 
herent in this system from our point of view, namely, that these 


50 CHINA PART V 


poems exist chiefly for the eye and cannot very well be heard or 
read aloud, obviously does not arise for the Chinese, for whom 
this convention is a matter of habit. But what is the use of 
speaking of easier or more difficult conditions? Man creates 
the conditions which he deserves. China’s supremacy of form 
is unquestionable in all circumstances. 

At night-time I occasionally visit one of the famous ‘gam- 
bling hells’ and amuse myself with the fan-tan. There can 
hardly be anything more calm and peaceful than such a hell. 
Gamblers almost always look earnest and professional, but I 
have never observed anywhere such cheerful equanimity as in 
Macau. The game in itself is infinitely dull; the player at 
best can only win very little, the bank must in all circumstances 
win a great deal. The Chinaman, however, goes home calmly 
and placidly after he has played away his daily wage. He rocks 
himself at most, if he has lost teo much, in sweet opium dreams 
to comfort himself. 

While I watched this game, the passage in the Bhagavad- 
Gita came to my mind in which Krishna (as God, as I¢vara) 
says of himself: I am the game of the gambler. As a matter 
of fact, the feeling for hazard, whatever may be said against 
it, implies the existence of vitality. The independent staking 
of pure chance as the sole condition of experience means, re- 
garded from the Atman point of view, the same thing in prin- 
ciple as being a match for the changes and chances of life. For 
life is, after all, nothing but the capacity to assert a condition 
of inner equilibrium within the transition of external circum- 
stances. The fact that most gamblers, in intimate contradic- 
tion to themselves, seek after systems, belongs to the counter- 
point of Life: we always do that which destroys the mean- 
ing of our real volition—Why is it that the type of the 
gambler—no matter what his stake may be—cannot be re- 
garded as a high one? It is due to the fact that the man who, 
within the correlation of life with the outer world, stresses the 
accidental side, thereby placing what is senseless above sense; 
he really abdicates as a free, responsible being. The gambler 
is the antipode of the hero: whereas the latter knows his life to 
be profoundly significant and sacrifices it because he recognises 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 51 


something even higher, the former stakes his life because he 
thinks it indifferent. 


39 
TSING-TAU 


I Am beginning to be grateful to the revolution: thanks to it, a 
large number of distinguished Chinese, among them several 
ex-Governor-Generals and ex-Viceroys, have gathered together 
in Tsing-tau, whither they have fled from the partisans of 
Western civilisation. Richard Wilhelm interprets between 
them and myself. Thus I am beginning to get an insight into 
the highest possibilities of Chinese humanity. 

My expectations are being exceeded by a wide margin; these 
gentlemen, whatever they may be as human beings, stand on 
an extraordinarily high level as types; especially their supe- 
riority impresses me. Not only do they stand above their out- 
ward fate, which is such a sad one at the moment: they rise 
above their thoughts, their actions, their personality in general; 
and they do so not in the way the Yogi does it, who has leapt 
beyond appearance, but in the more difficult sense of the 
worldly-wise, who preserves his inner freedom in the midst of 
the turmoil in which he participates. In India, people disap- 
pointed me; they are less than their literature. What is high- 
est and profoundest in them has found expression in abstract 
thought, and the majority of live Indians do not embody the 
striving after the ideal, but they act it; therefore one learns 
little through intercourse with them. The vital Chinese, on 
the other hand, are undoubtedly more than their wisdom, yea, 
and I would almost say that they are more than their classic 
literature. I am beginning to understand the meaning of Con- 
fucianism. Kung Fu Tse struck me, until now, as a rationalis- 
ing moralist, and the high praise which falls to the lot of 
Mencius astonished me to some extent since I could only 
regard his conception of the world as no doubt exceedingly 
reasonable but not profound. Now I realise that Confucian 
philosophy must be understood in quite a different way from 


52 CHINA PART V 


the Indian and from the German: as philosophy it does not 
represent any intrinsic and independent expression at all, but 
it represents the abstract formula of a reality which has either 
been experienced or is to be experienced; the word of Kung 
Fu Tse must be understood as flesh, or as a reference to exist- 
ing flesh. In these circumstances his teaching assumes quite a 
different character and appears separated by a wide abyss from 
the moral philosophy of our eighteenth century, which it 
resembles so closely on the surface; therefore it does not sig- 
nify much if its thoughts, as such, are not profound: I do not 
believe that God thinks profound thoughts, for He is pro- 
fundity itself; where profundity gains perfect expression in 
concrete existence, there the sense for profundity is superfluous. 
That is precisely what strikes me in the distinguished gentle- 
men whom I meet in Tsing-tau: they live Confucianism; what 
I regarded hitherto as a theoretical postulate is their very form 
of existence to them. All these statesmen take it as a matter of 
course that the organism of state rests on a moral basis, that 
politics are the external expression of ethics, and that justice is 
the normal emanation of good intentions; and it seems a mat- 
ter of course to them, in quite a different sense from that in 
which the Sermon of the Mount does to the Christians: not as 
something which ought to be, but which happens only rarely, 
but as something which necessarily takes place. This brings 
about a fundamental difference. One always achieves what one 
does not doubt. I do not know the merits, as regents, of the 
governors with whom I conversed: it is certain, in any case, that 
they ruled in the Confucian spirit, which is to say from a moral 
basis. And this necessarily transfigured even their insufh- 
ciency. 

For the first time I find myself in the presence of a human 
type whose deepest element is morality. Such a type does not 
exist in the West. It is possible that our Government officials 
have acquitted themselves better during the last hundred years 
than Chinese ones (for the integrity of our functionaries is not 
older than that, as a typical manifestation, even in Germany )— 
it is certain that the spirit from which they do so is not equiv- 
alent to that of the Chinese, no matter how much they fail in 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 53 


practice. Our political culture is conditioned externally; it is 
the result of a system which forces the individual to good 
actions; it was called to life independently of the soul, and con- 
tinues independently of it. The political culture of the Chinese 
depends upon the development of his inner self, and when 
one considers that the great Chinese Empire has hardly been 
governed worse for thousands of years than modern Europe 
is to-day, and that this has been done without the mediation 
of a machinery which automatically holds men in check, 
purely and solely thanks to the moral qualifications of its 
citizens, one must confess that the average level of moral cul- 
ture must be extraordinarily high among Chinese Jiterati. At 
any rate, it is extraordinarily high in the case of those with 
whom I have come in touch. And one can hear, through the 
most courteous remarks they make concerning the West, a 
certain surprise that the same is so little the case there. They 
regard us as moral barbarians. Our system is, of course, 
worthy of admiration, but the men, and their fundamental 
attitude ...).) 1 %am).atraid these. gentlemen are) right.) ) We 
Westerners have run ahead of life with our intelligence. Our 
moral superiority, of which we are so proud, seems up to the 
present little more than the functioning within the confines 
of a more than intelligently thought-out system; because this 
is so, we are rebelling of late even against morality in general. 
Which of the extreme manifestations of the social life of the 
West do not find their profoundest explanation in the fact 
that external manifestations are not rooted in internal realities? 
_ Tolstoyism and anarchism on the one hand, and, on the other, 
nationalism and racial fanaticism—they are all movements 
which want to substitute natural for artificial phenomena. We 
are inferior to our system. The Chinese stand above theirs. 
This is the success of education in the spirit of Confucius. 

It gives me a great deal of food for thought that the practice 
of such simple principles as the Confucian ones can give men 
such superiority. I have never yet met with a perfect human 
being among European moral fanatics. But the cause of this 
difference is not far to seek: the principles of morals have 
always meant an external law to us, be it that God or authority, 


54 CHINA PART V 


or absolute practical reason opposed to nature, has imposed 
them upon us; Confucianism regards them as guiding lines, 
according to which a cultured individual acts necessarily and 
naturally. They think that it is in the nature of things that 
father and son, husband and wife, friend and friend, prince 
and subject, show each other faithfulness and benevolence; if 
man develops what is natural, morality is said to result of its 
own accord. The emphasis is thus laid on the perfect develop- 
ment of human nature. No one has any inner opposition to 
such categorical instruction; everybody wants to be cultured. 
Thus, the Chinese readily takes the trouble which the European 
youth, since the day that the spirit of antiquity died, hardly 
ever takes: he meditates on the meaning of morality. If he 
does so seriously and continuously, the correctness of the Con- 
fucian theory will some time or another be revealed to him. 
For it is a question of a man’s power of differentiation, which 
can be increased by training, whether he inclines towards good 
or evil. Henceforward, wavering is no longer possible; moral 
nature has been awakened.—How much in education depends 
on its beginning and technique! The Chinese have not thought 
anything like as much as we have concerning morality; they 
have never seen in it such a high ideal as our (especially Protes- 
tant) ethical leaders have. But in practice they have attained 
much more. 


+ 


THESE gentlemen are, of course, conservative: what politi- 
cally developed individual is not? The man who possesses a 
feeling for history, who knows that only organic growth leads 
upward, is never ‘progressive’ in the radical sense. In the in- 
trinsic meaning of the word, only such a man, of course, is 
really progressive, for he alone feels reverence for appearance, 
which the radical sacrifices everywhere thoughtlessly to an ab- 
stract principle. Is it not highly significant that the workmen 
of Belgium and France have already condemned the idea of 
‘human right,’ and only recognised the right of existence of 
their organised (technically ‘conscious’) comrades? 

It must be admitted that the dignitaries whom I refer to are 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 55 


not only conservative but decidedly reactionary. But how 
could a Confucian of the ancient type be in favour of inno- 
vation? —If the traditionally Chinese form of state, which was 
codified by Kung, is really alone in being in perfect harmony 
with the guide of the world, then the desire for innovation 
means nothing short of madness. Then the people can do 
nothing more wise than obey the old regulations strictly; then 
what we call ‘standstill’ has the same meaning as the perpetual 
rejuvenation of nature, which also proceeds within a changeless 
general frame. Then the eradication of the heretic really sig- 
nifies the same as the elimination of the unfit in the struggle for 
GE RIStetICOnt sa. « 

There are, of course, several things to be said against the 
form of state which the Tao is said to demand; and even more 
weighty considerations can be brought against the funda- 
mental presupposition of the static (immutable) nature of the 
arrangement of the world, which makes all innovation appear 
opposed to sense. The world is actually in process of growth; 
no ready-made ideals underlie it, but ideals are created afresh 
at every new stage. For this reason the idea of an absolutely 
best form of the state includes, as such, a misconception: as 
long as the world remains in the making, that is to say, as long 
as it exists, any ‘best possible form of state’ is an impossible 
concept; every concrete ideal can apply only for a definite 
period and to a special place. But it is precisely the man who 
understands all this who will pay the greatest admiration to 
the Chinese conception of the world. It is not only that its 
universal and fundamental idea, according to which the proc- 
esses of nature and the lives of men form a flawlessly inter- 
laced system, is a grand idea; it is not only the consistency 
with which every individual phenomenon is being related back 
to it, it is perhaps a unique example of intending-to-be and 
being-in-earnest—seeing what the Chinese were like during 
the last thousands of years, one must admit that they could not 
have professed a better philosophy: it has stood the pragmatic 
test perhaps better than any other in the world. China is the 
only empire which has solved the social question for an ex- 
tended period; the only one in which the mass of the popula- 


56 CHINA PART V 


tion was ever happy; and the only one which has ever embodied 
the absolute social and political ideal in the world of appear- 
ance. Since, moreover, the Chinese of to-day resemble their 
distant ancestors so that we could mistake them—how could a 
cultured Chinaman not be reactionary? 

I too feel like a reactionary here. All the more so as I see 
considerable reason to fear that that which has made China, until 
to-day, worthy of admiration and reverence, will be lost to- 
gether with the old order. The Chinese are, no doubt, not a 
nation of thinkers; their conscious thought seems to have 
moved more continuously on the surface than that of any 
nation of comparable culture and talents. However, living in 
accordance with profundity is more than harbouring deep 
thoughts, and that is what the Chinese have done to an incom- 
parable degree until to-day; their traditional communal life 
has the same meaning as the sublime philosophy of the Indians 
has for them; their life was a direct expression of the Tao. 
How perfectly they have always solved the problem of hap- 
piness! Every coolie demonstrates in his life the eternal truth 
which our greatest men have preached to deaf ears, namely, 
that happiness is a question of inner attitude, and that it is not 
dependent upon external circumstances as such. The theory 
that the course of the world is incapable of being influenced is, 
of course, at fault; the fact that we have not acted in accord- 
ance with the principle of Mong Tse: ‘It is better to wait until 
the weather is favourable than to acquire good implements for 
tilling the soil,’ has made us into the masters of nature. But 
how dearly we have paid for this achievement! Since we know 
that the external world is changeable, we have transferred the 
problem of happiness, together with all others, into this realm, 
and this condemns us to hopeless misery until we change our 
ways. And so on and so forth. Every Chinaman until this 
day, no matter how superficially he may have thought, no 
matter how inappropriately he may have acted, demonstrated 
a deep philosophy in his life; he counted the outer world as 
something truly external, and sought essentials in other dimen- 
sions. In Europe only women do this; they are accordingly 
by far the profounder philosophers of life. For this very rea- 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 57 


son women are typically conservative. In fact, if what is 
essential in no way depends on external circumstances, then it 
can easily appear more expedient to live in an unchangeable 
world, to which one has accommodated oneself once and for 
all, rather than having to adapt oneself anew again and again, 
without ever achieving a better general result in the process. 

Is not everything which is enduring reactionary? Nature, as 
such, is reactionary; not merely because she knows nothing of 
progress with a definite aim—whenever she has been changed 
from without she reverts, as soon as she is left to herself, back 
to her original condition, and this, this alone, seems immortal 
in her. Perhaps this is the solution of the problem why Asiatic 
people are generally longer-lived than European ones: either 
the physiological element dominates in them, or else the mental 
element, thanks to a conservative attitude, has been so inti- 
mately related to the former that it has become second nature. 


+ 


How perfect is the courtesy of the cultured Chinaman! It is 
an esthetic delight tc have intercourse with him, in spite of 
the unusual technical difficulties which the code of Chinese 
politeness causes to a foreigner. The fact is that etiquette in 
itself renders intercourse more easy: it creates an equation 
between incongruous elements, an equation which is always 
soluble; it places the sinner and God, the beggar and the king, 
on the same level, and leads strangers along a level track to- 
wards mutual understanding. Before I met Chinamen I had 
made myself familiar with the fundamental rules of their code, 
and I now follow them as well as I can, and find, to my delight, 
that it works. 

In the distinguished Chinaman, that most refined form of 
perfection seems to have been attained in which politeness, 
within the limits of custom strictly observed, has given appro- 
priate expression to personality. How rarely one meets with 
this in modern Europe! I have observed something of similar 
value only in a few French Grand Seigneurs, and they were 
late-born sons of the eighteenth century. Whoever has good 
manners to-day is generally conventional and correspondingly 


58 CHINA PART V 


superficial. In order to realise the most personal content in 
objective form, one must be more cultured than education 
allows in present-day Europe. In China this is still possible, 
and for this reason the great men of this country stand on a 
higher level of culture than ours do. For the typical form is 
not opposed to perfect individual expression; on the contrary: 
individual expression generally precludes it. The more an art 
becomes perfect, the more classic does it become, which means 
that what is accidental and individual becomes sublimated into 
forms of general validity. The same is true of man. The 
more he becomes inward, profound, potentialised, the more 
do his personal elements retreat into the background, and the 
more generally human does his being appear to become. Thus, 
all truly great men have been types rather than individuals. 
Tolstoy is more of a Russian than a personality. Voltaire is 
more of a Frenchman than himself; and those mightiest men of 
all who have burst all local and national barriers, are, for this 
reason, not less, but more, typical in a wider sense: they are 
simply men, stylised according to an absolutely general for- 
mula: according to the formulas of saints, of men of action, 
of thinkers. Thus Christ calls Himself ‘the son of man,’ and 
Buddha ‘the perfected one.’ In precisely the same sense has 
courtesy, which means obedience to the most general form 
which controls desirable intercourse between men, proved it- 
self, everywhere and at all times, as the best possible means 
of expression of a highly cultured personality. 

How is it that this highest form seems to be attained by 
educated Chinese not exceptionally, but as a rule, whereas 
among us perfect Grand Seigneurs were scarce even in the 
seventeenth century? This is the work of two writings which 
have inspired all education for more than two thousand years 
in the Middle Empire: the Book of Reverence (Hiau Ging), 
and the real catechism of Chinese civilisation, the Book of Rites. 
The former bases the whole of morality (which, according to 
Chinese ideas, contains the whole of life within it) upon the 
principle of reverence. Like Goethe, Chinese wisdom sees in 
it that ‘which no one brings into the world with him, that upon 
which everything depends, so that man shall become a man in 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 59 


all directions’; like him, it represents it in three aspects: as 
reverence before that which is above us, that which is below 
us, and that which is like us; indeed, reverence before every- 
thing which exists appears to this outlook as the very basis of 
all virtue and all wisdom. And that is really what it is: one 
only does justice to that which one takes absolutely seriously. 
For this reason, politeness is not something essentially exter- 
nal, but the most elemental expression of morality: whereas 
virtue and kindness cannot fairly be demanded of everybody, 
the formal acceptance of another personality can be demanded. 
This gives its profound significance to courtesy. This signifi- 
cance, then, has been developed into a marvellous theoretical 
doctrine in the second-named volume, the Book of Rites, 
which, on the other hand, is founded upon it. It asserts that 
man can only become inwardly perfect if he expresses himself 
perfectly outwardly; he can only express what is most personal 
in him correspondingly if he obeys the forms which have 
proved themselves to be typical for the Chinese in the course of 
history. How infinitely beneficial it must be to be instructed in 
this manner from childhood! This equation is actually estab- 
lished through the fact that it is regarded as a matter of course 
that form symbolises its content, that the external gives ex- 
pression to the internal; this happens in the case of talented 
people by creative understanding, in the case of the average 
man in the sense of Prussian military drill. This result is 
enhanced by other circumstances: the Chinaman has a funda- 
mental sense for etiquette, and for this reason the practice of 
good manners meets only rarely with the opposition which is 
peculiar to the modern European youth; moreover, considera- 
tion is a vital question where the community ties the individual 
on all sides so that he cannot be regarded as his own master 
in any way, and sometimes even has to act ‘objectively’ where, 
according to our ideas, only subjectivity is in question. But no 
matter what empirical conditions may be at play: no matter how 
external the circumstances may be, at any rate in China the 
cultured individual appears to be more inward than anywhere 
else. 

The marvellous courtesy which has delighted me during 


60 CHINA PART V 


these days is the flower of Confucianism, just as the thorough 
moral development of man signifies its root. Is this world 
conception not magnificent which knows how to bring all pro- 
fundity to the surface? Which establishes a necessary equa- 
tion, not only between moral and formal culture, between 
charm and dignjty, but between gracefulness and seriousness, 
gracefulness and wisdom? ‘This presupposed equation very 
naturally manifests itself perfectly only in the highly cultured 
individual; in the mass, externals predominate here, as every- 
where else where culture has reached a similar height. Of all 
European people the French are socially the most cultured, 
and even among them forms have come to lead an existence 
which is ever more and more independent of its content; just 
as in China manners dominate which have no relation to ethical 
qualities, so a stupid Frenchman can seem clever simply because 
his language is so very intelligent. Now what is to be pre- 
ferred, a perfect external civilisation which exists by itself and 
does not necessarily influence the individual, or perfect sincerity 
of the subject which, considering what men are to-day, leads to 
a condition of general barbarism? This question will be 
answered differently according to whether one’s spirit is Catho- 
lic or Protestant. The Catholic-minded will stress the fact that 
the obedience to form which is objectively the best, no matter 
how external it may be, influences a man in the long run, so that 
it cannot be regarded as a misfortune if he does not appear 
sincere from time to time, because he will be educated up to a 
higher condition by this means; and he will reproach the 
Protestant with the fact that too much emphasis on straight- 
forwardness, although it makes man momentarily free, really 
robs him of his future; he will maintain that the man who re- 
fuses to be determined by what is above him, and what cannot 
correspond to his being for that very reason, will never get be- 
yond himself—The man of Protestant proclivities, on the 
other hand, will judge sincerity to be absolutely superior, no 
matter how dearly one pays for it, because man can be advanced 
intrinsically only through his own experience, while no 
matter how imperfect an independently gained insight may be, 
it possesses more value in all circumstances than the very best 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 61 


activity under the guidance of authority. He will, moreover, 
maintain that there can be no question of renouncing the future 
for the sake of the present, because, as success has proved, the 
Protestant people are precisely the most progressive. The 
Catholics are to-day exactly where they were hundreds of years 
ago, whereas the Puritans who, two hundred years ago, were 
barbarians, march to-day, as every one knows, at the head of 
civilisation. ‘That is quite correct. Undoubtedly the culture 
of sincerity implies the more far-sighted policy, as compared 
with the culture of perfect form. But regarded from the angle 
of the given present, the former seems to be the more desirable. 
For it alone presents a picture of a perfection which has been 
attained, whereas the other only promises it for the future. 


a 


May one describe the formal culture of China as exemplary? 
Unquestionably, if it is understood according to its spirit; 
the Chinese have transfused the surface with spirit more per- 
fectly than all other people, and they have succeeded in pro- 
ducing the most complete fusion of form and significance. 
Again and again I come back to Confucius’ picture of the ‘Noble 
One,’ whose profundity appears in his gracefulness: no demi- 
god could be more accomplished. Generally, profundity and 
attractiveness are mutually exclusive, just as primitive force 
and charm, ease and thoroughness are; it seems almost incon- 
ceivable that a man could combine within himself the advan- 
tages of the Germans and of Frenchmen. The Chinese in his 
highest manifestation really combines them within him. And 
even if he does not attain altogether to the profundity of the 
one or to the mobility of the other, if he is less brilliant, less 
delicate, if his natural disposition is not quite so rich as ours is 
in many cases, yet his cultured existence represents neverthe- 
less a synthesis of humanity which has not been realised in an 
equally embracing form anywhere else. 

In spirit, formal Chinese culture is undoubtedly exemplary; 
I, at any rate, could not conceive of any other which is more 
worthy of emulation. But then I ask myself: Is its realisation 
ultimately tied to Chinese peculiarities? Possibly. This world 


62 CHINA PART V 


is curiously constituted, in so far as it often requires a purely 
accidental conjunction in order to embody an eternal and 
generally valid meaning in appearance. Just as the poet is by 
no means the ‘ only true man,’ as Schiller would have it, the 
man with the intensest experience, the strongest passions, but 
the one who happens to turn an accidental combination of tal- 
ents into the mouthpiece of something which others often pos- 
sess in a far deeper measure; just as the ‘genius’ is not a self- 
determined unit, but comes to exist through the coincidence of 
certain talents with definite historical factors, none of which 
would have brought about an inspired creation by themselves— 
in this way it may very well be that Chinese perfection, which, 
in its significance, represents an absolute climax, can only be 
presented in Chinese. Such a presentment, however, cannot be 
an example for us. For it requires a very special temperament 
to remain perfectly genuine while obeying a strictly prescribed 
ritual, and to evince genuineness while confining oneself 
consciously within the limits of one of the most rigid forms 
of life. This form of life is perhaps not quite as foreign to us 
as it seems: Englishmen are not very different. They gener- 
ally do, think and wish the same thing and remain original at 
the same time; the Briton pronounces platitudes with the same 
power of conviction as Galileo once pronounced his eppur si 
muove; and the Briton is accordingly also by far the most per- 
fect of all European men. But it is precisely when the simi- 
Jarity in principle between the Chinese and the British has been 
recognised that one must feel strong doubt whether the ideal 
of absolute perfection is capable of general realisation. One 
can become everything except an Englishman if one has not 
been born one; his characteristics are strictly conditioned by 
thousands of details, accidents, limitations and prejudices, 
more so than in the case of any other expression of European 
humanity; and only where these primary conditions are ful- 
filled do the advantages of the Englishman appear. In the 
same way, the individualistic culture of the Renaissance stood 
and fell with the predominance of extraordinary individuals. 
Thus it may very well be that the example of China too is 
inimitable. 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 63 


I for my part do not regret this, for I believe but faintly in 
the general and all-sided progress of the human race, nor do I 
believe that it would be desirable. For whither would it lead? 
To progressive uniformity. It is better for us that our ideals 
experience short-lived realisation like lightning here and there, 
sometimes in antiquity, sometimes now and sometimes at any 
period, sometimes in China, sometimes in Greece, sometimes 
in Germany, so that we are mentally continually on the look- 
out; I say that this is better than that we should surrender 
ourselves, with cheap optimism, to the drift of time which is to 
lead us mechanically towards an ideal condition. 


+ 


I must, after all, turn my attention to the reverse of the 
Chinese culture of form: its external quality which on the 
whole distinguishes it to-day. 

That it is external in general is a matter of course: it is im- 
possible that perfect form can be the true expression even of 
the most highly cultured mass. The mass may be charming, 
considerate, polite and yet straightforward, but it cannot be 
straightforward and simultaneously polite in the courtly sense; 
it is beyond their power to fulfil so much form. Whence, 
however, the extreme character of Chinese externals? For they 
are indeed extreme. The average Chinese is so aware of what 
ought to be done that he reveals himself only exceptionally 
without any ulterior thought; he appears quite at his ease 
only where he feels absolutely secure; he is, throughout the 
whole of his life, as it were, his own master of ceremonies. 
Correspondingly, he only feels himself responsible for what 
happens externally, for the ‘workings’ of the ceremonial; the 
inner outlook does not belong to his domain, it seems unim- 
portant to him. Nothing that has grown as a live being can 
ever be deduced as such; essentials escape justification. Still] 
it will do no harm if I summarise briefly in abstracto the gen- 
eral causes which are at issue: the extreme nature of Chinese 
externalism is due to the fact that a people with a limited con- 
sciousness of individuality, with an extraordinary sense of 


64 CHINA PART V 


form, and with remarkable social talents, has existed in too 
many examples for thousands of years. 

Imagine thousands upon thousands of peaceable, practical 
human beings crammed together into the smallest space and 
never able to escape from it. The only possibility of satisfac- 
tory mutual relations would depend upon the strict obedience 
to what seemed right to every one present. In intercourse what 
matters is not the attitude but its expression; not the true being, 
but semblance. In a commonwealth like the one which has 
been presupposed this would be the case especially. There 
would be no room at all for personal whims; only a life of 
strict conformity could possibly flourish as a general standard. 
If, moreover, an original tendency existed to perform the in- 
evitable, then this would benefit the prestige of custom, which 
would further be supported by their sense for form. In this 
way the whole of their social life would soon be regulated 
according to objective forms, and it would have been external- 
ised in this process. This trend of thought shows that the 
actual condition of Chinese society can be construed on an @ 
priori basis. What does this prove? It proves how much it is 
in accordance with nature. In point of fact, we are closer to 
the Chinese than we believe. We are pleased to mock at the 
Chinese ‘face,’ the longing to preserve appearances above all; 
at the paradox of a man who bears the consequences of his 
wrong-doing without a murmur, as long as he can keep up the 
pretence that he is suffering innocently, or that his suffering is 
no suffering at all: exactly the same is true of ourselves. 
Among us too in social life everything depends upon reputa- 
tion, public opinion, and on myths; in our case, social life causes 
externalisation everywhere. As soon as consideration of others 
affects behaviour at all, straightforwardness and faithfulness 
towards oneself recede into the background; as soon as the 
former becomes decisive, the latter exists no longer. The mere 
postulation of consideration as a value removes the sheer possi- 
bility of congruity between being and action, or between being 
and semblance. Let no one suggest that Christian love proves 
the contrary: it is just Christian love which is essentially lack- 
ing in consideration; it does not care a button for the feelings 


CHAP. 39 TSING-TAU 65 


of its neighbour; it wishes him well for the sake of good. We 
consider the feelings of our fellow-beings only in so far as we 
are bad Christians. Thus, Chinese society expresses what is 
typical only in an extreme, or, if you like, in a caricatured, 
form; the Chinese are not an eccentric people, they are only the 
most completely formed and the most consistent of men. And 
in a certain sense they are the most sincere. We all act con- 
stantly to ourselves; we all regard ourselves, in conscious self- 
deception, as different from what we know we are; we are all 
inwardly contented if, thanks even to the most dubious trans- 
action, appearances are preserved before ourselves. We are 
only afraid of dissimulation before others. The self-de- 
velopment of the idea, as Hegel would say, has produced the 
quaint result, that we are straighter towards others than we are 
towards ourselves; that we are truthful from untruthfulness. 
The Chinese manner of acting in front of others as they do to 
themselves, seems, in comparison with our method, undoubt- 
edly the more honest. Let no one imagine that I am merely 
joking here; I am perfectly serious. Any one who cannot be- 
lieve in the greater uprightness of the Chinese should get hold 
of the newspapers in which they discuss their intimate affairs: 
I have never met with such a method of observation totally 
lacking in vanity, nor with such unreserved professionalism. 
When they mean to be honest, they are honest, not otherwise; 
we pretend to be always so. 

The fact that the Chinese credit ceremonial with a signifi- 
cance which seems inordinate to modern men is also typical 
and not a proof of their eccentricity. The form no doubt plays 
a more important part in China than its content: but this is a 
‘state of affairs which we meet with everywhere at a certain stage 
of development. The more a people is still in a natural condi- 
tion, that is to say, the simpler, the more primitive it would 
have appeared according to the theory of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, the more does ritual mean to it. This state of affairs 
assumes at first a more subtle aspect in the course of develop- 
ment; ritual becomes more complicated, more refined, until, 
at some moment, the point appears to be reached at which the 
individual revolts against the reputations created by the com- 


66 CHINA PART V 


munity, and he finally breaks the historical form. We Euro- 
peans have arrived at the last of the stages which have been 
sketched above, the cultured Chinese at the previous one, the 
one in which objective form has attained to its uttermost devel- 
opment. The Chinese represent this in classical typification, 
more classical even than the Frenchmen did in the Europe of 
the seventeenth century, whose condition resembles so remark- 
ably that of the China of yesterday; they regard the form of 
all action really as its substance. Psychologically this attitude is 
based upon the fact that at first man is not a match for the 
things he has invented, and he therefore overestimates them 
accordingly—this applies to ritual as it does to machinery (the 
mechanical view of the world of to-day is psychologically 
equivalent to the ritualistic one); he regards them as inde- 
pendent entities, not merely as organs or means of expression 
of his own being. Biologically, however, this view is directly 
connected with the lack of individualisation of men at this 
stage. Where a man’s class seems more in his own conscious- 
ness than man does himself, then the rules which apply to the 
community necessarily mean more to him than his personal 
equation; there the strict obedience of custom has the same 
metaphysical meaning that straightforward self-expression has 
among ourselves. This is interpreted variously, according to 
the mental capacity and culture of the people concerned: those 
who are mythically inclined, like the Indians, accord magical 
virtues to ritual, while people who are poorer in imagination, 
like the French, content themselves with regarding custom 
as the ultimate court of appeal. The Chinese have thought out 
the profoundest theory which could have been invented for 
this relation, profound less in the sense of understanding than 
in the more significant sense of its effect upon life: they have 
taught and professed the belief that obedience to objective 
forms necessarily leads the individual towards his personal 
perfection. The masses have remained external in spite of it, 
but to the higher average a road has thus been pointed out 
which leads, more surely if not more rapidly, to the goal than 
any which we have ever embarked upon. 

The significance of ceremonial in China is a typical and not 


CHAP. 40 THROUGH SHANTUNG 67 


an extraordinary phenomenon; it is typical of a society which is 
not highly individualised but possesses a high culture at the 
same time. The modern European finds some difficulty in tak- 
ing such forms of life seriously. But if manifestations are 
to be taken seriously at all, then this applies to these too. For 
a metaphysician there is no difference between the forms which 
nature puts into the world and those created by the inventive 
imagination. As phenomena, both are equally real; from the 
point of view of significance both are one and the same. And if 
even the metaphysician cannot help considering this chinoiserie 
as somewhat grotesque, as a caricature of the generality of man- 
kind, it strikes him simultaneously as raised to the level of a 
caricature of the whole creation. All definite manifestations 
can be regarded as prejudice; every one, regarded from some 
point of view, appears grotesque. It is a question of one’s 
mood, of one’s momentary whim, whether one feels inclined to 
smile at man as such, this strange, hybrid creature, or whether 
the peculiar ceremonies which he observes when expressing his 
greetings awaken our ridicule... . 


40 
THROUGH SHANTUNG 


HE greatness of China takes hold of and impresses me 
Ble. and more. It is a universe by itself, essentially 
greater than any other empire which I have ever entered, and 
I well understand by now that its inhabitants are not inclined 
to take the rest of the world very seriously. At times I am 
reminded of Russia, that other gigantic empire which will 
always appear great, no matter what may happen to it: what is 
this common quality, of which I am so acutely conscious in spite 
of all the differences? I do not quite know; but I believe 
that it is the grandeur of the scale which differentiates China 
in the same way from all the countries of the East as Russia 
from those of the West. There is nothing wider, nothing more 
encompassing, than the ‘brown plain,’ and it is reflected in 
the smallest manifestations. The true Russian son of the soil 


68 CHINA PART V 


is essentially (even if not always actually) a big and broad- 
minded nature. In the same way, the open, clearly outlined 
Chinese landscape is monotonous, rhythmic and great, and its 
inhabitants bear the same stamp. The Chinaman too gives 
essentially an impression of bigness, no matter how dry and 
philistine he may often be, for a tremendous unity is at the 
bottom of his chinoiserie. The very expressive term chinoi- 
serie awakens at first an image of something small and petty, 
just as the corresponding image in Burma, Siam and Japan 
actually bears a petty character. In China one feels the sub- 
stance of the powerful soul of a great people through every 
arabesque, and its power is uncannily seductive. I know 
for certain that in the long run, it would take possession of me 
completely, as it has taken possession already of so many. 

The substantiality of the Chinese strikes one all the more 
because his surface often betrays a nature which our European 
imagination finds difficult to harmonise with the idea of pro- 
fundity; whatever is pretty, dainty, graceful and finicky seems 
superficial to us. The Chinaman, however, is profound, per- 
haps the profoundest of all men. No one is rooted so deeply in 
the order of nature, no one is so essentially moral; and ex- 
ternals mean to no one as much as they do to him. Only pro- 
found men are capable of taking forms so seriously. 

But the quality which gives its unique weight to Chinese pro- 
fundity is that it is profundity turned flesh; it is, as it were, 
spiritualised gravity. The spirit of the masterpieces of early 
Chinese art wears a more powerful body than anywhere else. 
How overpowering is the oppression produced by early Chinese 
images of Buddha! They breathe a measure of strength which 
a god would have to possess in order to appear as a god upon 
earth. Something of this power is innate in every Chinaman. 
China as a whole, however, is inspired by it through and 
through. 

Whoever wants to do justice to China must keep in his 
mind’s eye simultaneously its chinoiserie, the greatness of the 
empire and the fundamental vital power of its inhabitants. He 
must survey Chinese courtesy together with the grandeur of 
Chinese nature. How little does intrinsic greatness, after all, 


CHAP. 40 THROUGH SHANTUNG 69 


depend upon the accident of opportunities for expression! This 
greatness is solely determined by being. China has remained 
great although it has generally been vanquished in war, al- 
though it has rarely been a strong political entity, and would 
remain great even if one day it were to be dismembered. 


+ 


I am in Asia now. I am no longer in that Orient which ex- 
tends from Greece via Egypt, Asia Minor and Persia, to India 
and Southern China; I am in the Asia which begins in Russia 
and comprehends all the people of this wide inland region in 
one grandiose unity. Psychologically the Russian is more close- 
ly related to the Indian than to the Chinaman; in many ways 
the Russian soul is in tune with that of the old Indian; the fun- 
damental relation to God and to nature of both peoples is the 
same. But the background of the Russian, on the other hand, 
is identical with that of the Chinaman. The background of all 
Asiatics is that of concrete infinity, the infinity of space and of 
time. That is something which no European, no Indian pos- 
sesses. If one compares a distinguished German with a Rus- 
sian of equal eminence, one is struck by the ampler background 
against which the latter stands out: that is the Asiatic quality 
in him. There is never more than his history behind the Euro- 
pean, which, of course, when it is great, rich and significant, 
gives him a relief which no other man possesses. But this 
background is always a finite one, and the clearest contours do 
not take the place of width. At the back of the Oriental stand 
legends or fairy-tales: they represent more in so far as possi- 
bility is always more than reality; it is less, as they are suscep- 
tible of doubt. For this reason the Oriental seems always 
somehow unreal; he produces the effect of a guasimodogenitus 
who is simultaneously infinitely old. The background of the 
Asiatic is immeasurable nature, the endless process of the world. 
In this way the Indian has understood man, but his recogni- 
tion has never been translated into life. Nature, which he 
has understood so deeply, has hardly existed for him im con- 
creto. How tremendously it exists for the Russian! No one 
is so much at one with her as the simple Mujik, no artist has 
represented man so plastically in his at-one-ness with the whole 


70 CHINA PART V 


of life as Leo Tolstoy. The delicate soul of the Slav is in 
immediate sympathy with the universe which serves as its back- 
ground, The matter-of-fact Chinaman possesses no capacity 
for sympathy in this sense; but his living background is the 
same. In his case, the case of the social genius, the feeling for 
the world’s significance manifests itself in the regulation of life. 
Who else would ever have hit upon the idea of conceiving as 
one indivisible whole the ceremonies performed by the Son of 
Heaven, and the alternation of the seasons of the year as the 
normal evolution of social life? Who else has understood the 
latter with anything like equal profundity? To the Chinaman, 
in his own way, it seems self-evident that everything is corre- 
lated. The Asiatics have never regarded man and nature as 
alien, they have conceived the former as a part of the latter. 
How moving it is in Anna Karenina that the death of the hero- 
ine is not judged and presented in any other way than the previ- 
ous death of the noble race-horse! How much style does its 
non-anthropomorphic character give to Chinese art! While a 
picture of exceeding beauty is produced when nature appears 
projected upon the surface as it was by Homer and Goethe, 
greater depth of insight is required not to differentiate between 
man and nature, and to understand both from within as an in- 


dissoluble whole. 


4l 
TSI-NAN FU 


NGS before have such impressive pictures of country life 
been unfolded before me as on this journey through inner 
China. Every inch, of soil is in cultivation, carefully manured, 
well and professionally tilled, right up to the highest tops 
of the hills, which, like the pyramids of Egypt, slope down in 
artificial terraces. The villages, built of clay and surrounded by 
clay walls, have the effect of natural forms in this landscape: 
they hardly stand out against the brown background. And 
wherever I cast my eyes, I see the peasants at work, methodi- 
cally, thoughtfully, contentedly. It is they who everywhere 


CHAP. 41 TSI NAN FU 71 


give life to the wide plain. The blue of their jerkins is as much 
a part of the picture as the green of the tilled fields and the 
bright yellow of the dried-up river-beds. One cannot even 
imagine this flat land devoid of the enlivening presence of these 
yellow human beings. And it represents at the same time one 
great cemetery of immeasurable vastness. There is hardly a 
plot of ground which does not carry numerous grave mounds; 
again and again the plough must piously wend its way between 
the tombstones. There is no other peasantry in the world which 
gives such an impression of absolute genuineness and of belong- 
ing so much to the soil. Here the whole of life and the whole 
of death takes place on the inherited ground. Man belongs 
to the soil, not the soil to man; it will never let its children 
go. However much they may increase in number, they remain 
upon it, wringing from Nature her scanty gifts by ever more 
assiduous labour; and when they are dead, they return in child- 
like confidence to what is to them the real womb of their 
mother. And there they continue to live for evermore. The 
Chinese peasant, like the prehistoric Greek, believes in the life 
of what seems dead to us. The soil exhales the spirit of his 
ancestors, it is they who repay his labour and who punish him 
for his omissions. Thus, the inherited fields are at the same 
time his history, his memory, his reminiscences; he can deny it 
as little as he can deny himself; for he is only a part of it. 
—What do all the country idylls, from the Georgics to Her- 
mann und Dorothea, amount to by the side of this epopee? 
I am reminded of Laotse’s stanza: 


Man has the earth for image, 

The earth has the sky for image, 

The sky has significance for image, 
And significance has itself for image. 


According to Chinese conceptions, heaven and earth, the 
events of the world and the life of men, morality and the nor- 
mal course of nature, form one single connected whole. 
Heaven stands above the earth, and the earth stands above men. 
The peasant is the man who is most strictly subjected to it. But 


ie CHINA PART V 


for this very reason he forms the basis of the whole. If he 
does not carry out his duty rigidly, then the state, as well as 
heaven, begins to totter. He thus acquires a dignity possessed 
by no other being in the world. Every political philosophy will 
credit the peasant with dignity; the highest is always borne 
by the lowest, the most highly differentiated by the amorphous 
mass; this is in the nature of things. For the Chinese, however, 
this dignity has a special and very wonderful significance; their 
spirit stipulates a living and not merely a mechanical connection 
between every part of the universe and as a result the highest 
appears not only based, but mirrored, in the lowest; the Chi- 
nese peasant could, if he knew how to think and feel, regard 
himself as the bearer of heaven. Where else has the dull ex- 
istence of the mass been raised to the mirror of conscious 
wisdom? Where else has the instinctive routine of life been 
elevated to the image of spiritual harmony? ‘This implies an 
organisation of life which has never been excelled in signifi- 
cance. And this great significance has, as always happens when 
it is truly great, even transfigured appearance where it was 
hardly understood. The connection which Chinese mythology 
postulates is actually realised in life. The differentiated 
organs, in particular the emperors, have failed frequently: the 
Chinese peasant has always been, and is to-day, exactly as he 
ought to be. This shows one to what an extent it lies within 
the power of the mind to raise the world above itself. How 
blind those naturalists are who deny and reject ideals which 
cannot be proved to be originally in accordance with nature: 
whether they are originally in accordance with her or not, 
they can become so. Spirit sows its ideals into matter, and 
when the seed has sprung up and become mature, then the 
whole world appears transformed. 

We Europeans are far ahead of China in the control of na- 
ture, but life, as a conscious part of it, has found there its high- 
est expression hitherto. And, after all, we are parts of nature; 
whether as rulers or as subjects—the fundamental synthesis 
remains the same. The Chinaman is fully conscious of this 
synthesis, and we are not; to this extent he stands above us. 


CHAP.42 PEKIN 73 


42 
PEKIN 


I SPENT my first hours of the late afternoon in Pekin at the 
Temple of Heaven. The gigantic marble altar towers up 
from the wide, desolate expanse of sand, surrounded by a few 
dusky pines. Every now and again one hears the cawing of 
a crow; the district is as if deserted by man. One feels that 
history interferes here only at the turning-point of events. 
The building is exceedingly sober, but of marvellously noble 
proportions. Its pure and spiritualised beauty is most impres- 
sive in the midst of these wild surroundings. It draws the 
spirit away from what is physically powerful and oppressive 
and points it irresistibly upwards towards heaven. All over the 
snowy stone the emblem of the dragon has been chiselled. The 
dragon is the primary image of the beginning of creation, the 
first ethereal form into which significance has been condensed. 
The dragon is the symbol of all-penetrating, omnipresent 
fluidity, of eternal rejuvenation, of perpetual change; it is the 
symbol of the first principle of the soul, and therefore of 
eternity. It is the spirit of the dragon which has erected the 
Temple of Heaven; it is a springboard from which to reach the 
sky, not a symbol of earthly gravity. 

I was in the right mood when I came. The picture of peas- 
ant-life on the way there had prepared me for the full under- 
standing of that which represents the extreme human link in 
the cosmic cohesion. The emperor upon the dragon throne is, 
as emperor, more than a man: he is the tie which unites heaven 
and earth, just as the peasant is the link which joins the earth 
toman. Thus he bears the responsibility for nature. A well- 
observed ritual vouches for the normal sequence of the seasons 
of the year; if the rain which the farmer needs comes too late, 
then the emperor must do penance remorsefully. His might 
and his position vouch for the harmonious function of creation, 
his character vouches for that of his ministers, his behaviour 
for that of his subjects. Thus, his right of autocracy is simul- 
taneously all-embracing responsibility which conditions and 


74 CHINA PART V 


limits him strictly. He is responsible not only to God, like 
the European autocrats of long ago, who could rule men 
according to their whims, he is not responsible only to men in 
the modern sense: he is responsible in the sense of the main 
mechanism of a watch. If the watch goes badly, the fault is 
always apparent in the main mechanism, but not in such a way 
that the watch might go badly and that its main wheel might 
fail, but feel quite comfortable for the rest: if the main 
mechanism is out of order, then it suffers first; it comes to a 
standstill by itself or else it breaks. Thus the dynasty which 
does not know how to rule must disappear sooner or later—it 
will either die out of its own accord, or it will be removed. 
What a wonderful conception! How infinitely higher than 
the conceptions of rule by divine Right, of God’s vicarage, or 
that of the divine character of the ruler, such as the Roman 
Czsars arrogated to themselves! It is the only conception 
which has solved satisfactorily the problem of the co-existence 
of absolute sovereignty with absolute practical responsibility. 
The Son of Heaven is mightier than any prince, for he even 
stands above Nature. But at the same time, he seems as 
limited as any responsible minister in a modern democracy, for 
he only signifies a special organ of a body which is cohesive on 
all sides, and in order to exist and to operate he is dependent 
upon all the other organs. Thus, the autocrat must allow him- 
self to be advised by the wisest of the nation, he must take the 
will of the people into consideration and strive unswervingly 
after good. If he reigns from motives of selfishness, he thus 
cuts off his own possibility of existence. This marvellous con- 
ception of the calling and the position of a ruler of men is the 
logical consequence of that general outlook on the world which 
characterises the Chinese more than anything else. According 
to this view, the laws of morality and nature belong to one 
single unified system. Identical laws rule moral behaviour, the 
sequence of the seasons and the change of day and night; it is 
a single, all-embracing cohesion, which rounds off into har- 
monious unity the non-human and the human, the organic and 
the inorganic, the natural and the moral qualities. Moral 
force, however, is the primary one! The Tao is qualified 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 75 


morally. Morality really means self-realisation. Accord- 
ingly, nature stands in danger of sinking back from cosmos 
into chaos if men fail to do their natural duty—if the father 
is not a good father, the husband not a good husband, the ruler 
not a good ruler, the subject not a good subject—and if they do 
not practise assiduously the five heavenly virtues (justice, mag- 
nanimity, politeness, insight and the faithful execution of 
duty). Thus even no emperor has the right to change anything 
in the existing order if his moral character does not qualify him 
for this task. On the other hand, if his character is as it should 
be, then everything runs smoothly of its own accord. In the 
Chong-yong it is written: ‘No sooner has the Emperor set his 
person in order than all duties towards him are fulfilled, no 
sooner does he pay due reverence to the wise men than he will 
differentiate with unerring correctness between error and truth, 
good and evil; no sooner does he show to his parents the love 
which he owes them than all strife will cease between his uncles, 
between his older and his younger brothers; as soon as he hon- 
ours his ministers according to their deserts, the business of 
state will prosper; as soon as he treats his subordinate officials 
correctly, the /iterati will fulfil their functions at the cere- 
monies with appropriate zeal. As soon as he loves his people 
like his son, this people will strive to emulate him; as soon 
as he has gathered together scholars and artists at his court, 
his riches will be put to the right use; as soon as he receives 
strange visitors in a friendly manner, men will flow together 
from the four corners of the world in his empire in order 
_to participate in its blessings.? Moral force is the fundamental 
force of the world; as soon as it can assert itself duly every- 
thing else is regulated of its own accord. Kant spoke of two 
things which filled his heart with ever-new reverence: the 
starry sky above him and the moral law within him. For the 
Chinese the heavenly cosmos itself is an expression of moral 
law. 

It seems absurd to us to find one denomination for the laws 
of nature, which are fulfilled necessarily whenever anything 
happens, and for moral commandments which ought to be 
fulfilled but which are generally disregarded. In connection 


76 CHINA PART V 


with this it must be remembered that the Chinaman who be- 
lieves in this conception of the world does not know any laws 
of nature in our sense of the word; he judges from the point of 
view of the farmer, according to whose typical view Nature 
fails in her duties more frequently than she fulfils them; in- 
animate activity is predetermined no more simply for him than 
the actions of living beings, which demonstrably take this or a 
different course according to the character of the men con- 
cerned. Thus it is by no means irrational that he traces the 
order of the world and the order among men back to a common 
cause. 

Moral force as the primary force of the world manifests 
its influence directly; particular action is not required. . There- 
fore, it is handed down concerning the greatest emperors of 
China that they—did not rule. Kung-Fu-Tse said: Sublime 
was the way in which Shun and Yu ruled the earth, without 
doing anything to it. Laotse: 


If a very great man rules, then the people only know that he 
is there, 

Lesser men are loved and praised, still lesser men are feared, 

Still lesser men are despised. 

If one does not trust enough, 

One does not meet with trust. 


How thoughtful they were in the choice of their words! 


Tasks were accomplished, work was done, 
And all the people thought: 
“We are independent.’ 


Moral value is all that the true ruler needs for government. 
Even the convulsed China of to-day is in reality ruled only by 
moral prestige and by the general reverence of the people for 
that which stands above them. How insignificant is its machin- 
ery! The Mandarins have at their disposal neither military 
force nor police in order to carry out their orders, which are yet 
obeyed most readily. The prestige of their dignity is sufficient, 


CHAP. 42. PEKIN a5 


for it is presupposed that it corresponds to their value, and 
that it guarantees the reverence for what stands below them. 
How marvellous is the idea of such a government! It is the 
highest which can be conceived. If a people were perfectly 
cultured, no institutions would be needed, for everything would 
adjust itself of its own accord, The more cultured a people is 
the more can it rely upon the value of the individual, the less 
does it require any machinery. In England the judges are real 
independent rulers; they create the law; and this system has 
proved its worth because the men concerned stand on the 
necessary level. In Germany such powers cannot yet be given 
to the judges; strictly defined rules are necessary there. In 
Russia control of each application and interpretation of justice 
is required. In China the feeling for morality has gained the 
greatest development hitherto; it is the fundamental trait of 
this nation. And there, in idea at any rate, conditions are pos- 
sible which seem superhuman to the Westerner. 

Is there no machinery which a ruler necessarily requires for 
purposes of government? Yes; the machinery he requires con- 
sists in the rites. And here, wonderfully profound, the eter- 
nally human ends once more in chinoiserie. No authorities, 
and hardly any laws, are necessary; all life is organised of its 
own accord. But if the emperor should commit an error of 
etiquette during the great annual sacrifice on the altar of 
heaven, then even the best-regulated world would suddenly be- 
come chaotic. 


+ 


THE streets of Pekin are not as beautiful or picturesque 
as those of the metropolises of Southern and Central China. 
They are on a grander scale to make up for it (which does not 
only refer to physical breadth), and the air of the steppes 
blows through them. The spirit of Jenghis-Khan, of the great 
Manchu and Tartar conquerors, not that of the Chinese literati, 
has given this town its character; its effect is therefore power- 
ful and austere. Pekin is, above all, an Imperial city: this 
makes it seem more like Delhi and St. Petersburg than the 
nearby Tientsin and Tsi-Nan Fu. 


78 CHINA PART V 


These gigantic gateways, these massive walls, these towering 
palaces and pagodas are an equal number of tokens of the seat 
of rulers. As I wander along the great distances which separate 
monument from monument and take in the greatness of the 
spirit of Chinese imperial power, I am overcome by an increas- 
ingly hostile mood against the new republican state. How out 
of place it is here! Why have the Chinese introduced it? 
They will not become freer by it; America is not as free as 
they were. The local community, the social atom of China, 
was absolutely independent in its management. It chose its 
own leaders, attended to its own business, and hardly paid any 
regular taxes at all; the sums which the Mandarins from time 
to time squeezed out of them were infinitesimally small com- 
pared with what they will have to find regularly in future. 
The old government did not interfere at all in the daily life 
of its subjects; it remained inactive until action appeared 
absolutely necessary. Then, of course, it did often prove itself 
unjust, extortionate and cruel, but this was due to the individ- 
ual officials, not to the principle, which, as such, was admirable. 
There were, moreover, in monarchic China no privileged 
classes, no aristocracy; for thousands of years every individual 
had an open road to the highest offices. Nowhere else in the 
world was government less oppressive, in fact it was hardly 
noticeable, and nowhere have fewer official difficulties crossed 
the path of private initiative. The fact that the individual in 
China was, in spite of it, less free than in our world, was due 
to the inherited social order, not to the system of government, 
and if the former was to be changed, this could have been done 
just as well or just as badly under the old régime. Why, 
then, the revolution?—I suppose it was necessary, for the 
Manchus had exhausted the range of their possibilities: they 
had come to a point at which the spirit of the Chinese constitu- 
tion directly demanded a change of dynasty. It is inevitable 
in a system whose efficiency is guaranteed exclusively by the 
quality of its representatives that as soon as the latter deteri- 
orates the most undesirable conditions soon manifest them- 
selves. For whether it is right or not that a good ruler is 
necessarily served by good officials—it is certain that a bad em- 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 99 


peror, under the Chinese form of government, inevitably drives 
the state coach astray, for here there is no fixed machinery 
which could hold personal circumstances in balance. Thus a 
revolution had tocome. But the fact that this revolution meant 
more than the usual crises in the Chinese organism, that it led 
to the collapse of the whole system, is due to external circum- 
stances, especially to the infectious example of the West. And 
it will inevitably turn out to the disadvantage of the Chinese 
people if their common sense and their profound social and 
political culture do not prevent them from emulating the mis- 
takes of the West. 

I am not an enemy of the idea of a republic. JI admit uncon- 
ditionally that if people were perfectly cultured it would em- 
body the best of all forms of the state. But at the stage at 
which even the most advanced peoples of our day have arrived, 
it leads to the opposite of that which it is to bring about: to the 
rule of the incompetent, instead of that of the best; to enslave- 
ment in the place of liberation; and instead of raising the 
general level it lowers it. 

It does not bring about rule by the best elements because the 
uncultured individual is never inclined to recognise that any one 
is superior to him. He prefers to choose a man for his lord 
whose equal he considers himself to be; just as the Americans, 
with refreshing candour, admit openly that they do not wish 
to have distinguished representatives in their Congress, because 
such men would not represent the people. Only the prominent 
individual, who is not more important but more cunning than 
his electors, the demagogue, the intriguer, the opportunist, has 
any hope of gaining command of the rudder in a republican 
régime. Therefore, the leaders of such states lack precisely 
what the cardinal virtues of the ruler consist of: superiority. 
They are never free inwardly, they never have the calm power 
of surveillance which distinguishes the born leader of men. 
They simply are not independent, they have to ingratiate them- 
selves with the electorate and the Press. And what is already 
true of the chiefs applies, in an even higher degree, to their 
followers. Robert de Jouvenel, in his very amusing book 
La republique des camarades, has shown that the French Par- 


80 CHINA PART V 


liament of to-day does not represent the people in any way, 
but that it is a completely independent parasitical organism 
which lives in its midst, whose component parts are, on the 
other hand, absolutely dependent upon each other and must, 
therefore, consider each other in the first instance; hence they 
are only exceptionally in a position to think of the welfare 
of the state at all: in principle the same is true of all republics, 
and it is only a question of time how far the principle becomes 
actualised. Superiority and independence are not, so long as 
men remain what they are to-day, capable of continued exist- 
ence in republics. 

I said, moreover, that the republican form of government 
brings about, not liberation, but enslavement. Its introduction 
involved everywhere, originally, liberation from some kind of 
slavery, but only in order to result in a new and more evil 
variety. All republicans start from the false assumption that 
men are originally equal; thus the feeling for superiority in the 
citizens of such communities is eradicated artificially. The 
wise man possesses no more prestige than the average person, 
the distinguished personality no more than the plebeian. A 
responsible post is not given to the man who by nature is fitted 
for it, but to any one at random, or to a man of cunning. Thus 
personalities offer no guarantee for the functioning of the 
body of the state. What is to be done? The dead machine 
must be strengthened; it must vouch for everything which 
would otherwise be due to the intrinsic value of human 
beings. For this reason we find extreme democracies marked 
without exception by the machine-like quality of their activity. 
I wrote yesterday that the significance of a political system was 
in direct relation to the lack of culture of the subjects; whereas 
the English judge creates laws, the German may only apply 
them. Accordingly, the machinery seems absolutely omnip- 
otent in extreme democracies, where the best individuals can 
hardly make themselves felt. This is notably the case in the 
North American republic. There the caucus possesses more 
power than any Asiatic despot, and as the machine has no soul 
its tyranny is worse than that of the most cruel autocrat. 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 81 


The third point is the lowering of the level which republic- 
anism inevitably brings about; it results almost completely 
from what has been considered already. While incompetence 
is esteemed as much as competence, while the feeling for supe- 
riority becomes blunted and every one is ready to grant leader- 
ship only to his equals, superiority actually retrogresses and the 
general level falls to that of the lower elements; all the more 
so as the examples of a higher life become progressively more 
rare, and the supply of ideally minded citizens becomes re- 
duced. The development of as great superiority as existed in 
aristocratic periods is not possible in democratic communities 
—and this includes to-day all the states, even with a monarch- 
ical government—because wherever the masses are considered 
at all, very great individuals are not able to exist; but in mon- 
archies the level does not descend as far as in republics, where 
every one may have his say. Here the mass omnipotently 
creates the spirit of the age, and as it is this spirit which is com- 
municated to each new generation, it is inevitable that each suc- 
ceeding generation becomes more trivial than the preceding one. 
There is another weighty consideration against republics: it is 
related to the right of each individual to partake in political 
decisions. ‘The interest in politics is elevating only to the 
man who regards it as a great ideal task, that is to say the born 
ruler, the professional statesman, and the all too rare citizen 
with a real sense for the commonweal; all other people are de- 
teriorated by it. Why? In small things every one is mean; per- 
sonal interests determine his action. As a co-ruler of a re- 
public, the individual becomes mean on a large scale. He sees 
personal interest everywhere and acts accordingly. Under ab- 
solute rule it does not pay the private individual to concern 
himself with the larger issues of politics. For this reason 
self-interest there flourishes least; even in the most constitu- 
tional monarchy, there must be a few problems which do not 
concern him. In a republic, every one partakes in decisions 
about everything. 

China was free and will become enslaved, the level of the 
people will sink, and the ‘canaille’ will take the place of the 


82 CHINA PART V 


intelligentsia—unless China, happier than Europe and America, 
evades the danger at the last moment. How foolish it is to 
hope for a rise in the general level from the introduction of a 
republic! Of course, the difference between a coolie and a 
Mandarin is inordinate, and the former must be raised. But 
this will certainly not be brought about by emancipating him 
suddenly and allowing him to outvote his superiors. And even 
if intellectual development is to gain, moral development will 
certainly lose. But moral education is the most important fac- 
tor for every people, and the Chinese of all nations possess this 
quality in the greatest measure. How superior the coolie seems 
in this way to the haughty foreigner whom he carries and drives 
about! Or the hungry peasant to the missionary who pre- 
sumes to preach to him! How superior, above all, is the Man- 
darin of the old régime compared with the impudent young- 
sters who are at the head of the empire to-day! I think back 
to the days which I spent in Tsing-tau with the exiled leaders 
of bygone times: there was hardly one among them who, in 
spite of all his possible faults, could not be regarded as morally 
thoroughly cultured; who to this extent did not seem fitted to 
occupy a prominent position. Not long ago they were rich and 
mighty, now they are homeless and poor, and yet they bear 
their fate with smiling equanimity. I have seen them in 
despair, and even in tears: but that was out of sadness at the 
end of the great civilisation of China which they saw approach- 
In Meeks 


+ 


A FRANTIC sandstorm is raging; the sand-drift fills the 
streets. The Mongols whip their mules in order to reach a 
place of refuge more quickly; the Chinese in the rickshaws wear 
sheets in front of their eyes which cling, under pressure of the 
sand-laden wind, like dirty grease paint to their faces. There 
is no possibility of going to see anything. I spend my time in 
reading the history of Tsu-Hsi, the great dowager empress. 

This empress, who, according to our standard, was the most 
horrifying, ruthless tyrant, to whom men were no more sacred 
than flies, who had one of her ladies-in-waiting drowned with- 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 83 


out further ado because her entrance had disturbed her while 
painting—was regarded by her people as a kind-hearted, in 
fact as an all too kind, female; I heard this opinion only to-day 
from a Mandarin who had served under her. Undoubtedly 
she possessed a big nature, and big people are never bad; she 
intended the best, she fulfilled her duties as a ruler to the best 
of her conscience; the great traditions of ancient China were 
alive in her to an extraordinary degree. She was a masterful 
regent, a marvellous connoisseur of men, simultaneously a real 
artist and perfectly educated in classic literature. And yet 
one cannot say that she was good; she was a dragon, not a lamb. 
That she continues to live beneath the halo of kind-heartedness 
is very significant, for it has undoubtedly deeper causes than 
that typical metamorphosis wrought by memory, thanks to 
which even Napoleon is occasionally praised as a good and 
kindly person. 

The main cause of this is probably the psychological intui- 
tion, the feeling for the essence of a human being which char- 
acterises all Asiatics and above all the Chinese. From the 
moment I reached India I had to admire the certainty with 
which the Easterner applies an appropriate gauge to every one 
instinctively. This ability is due, in general (if I disregard 
special empirical conditions), to his belief in types; for we too 
were better psychologists as long as we looked primarily not 
for the special components but for the type of a soul. For the 
man who does so must perceive synthetically, he must see the 
individual elements in their correlation, and this correlation 
must appear as primary compared with its elements. Thus, the 
intelligent Asiatic takes it as a matter of course that he judges 
the actions of another man, not by himself, but according to 
what they mean in reference to the man concerned. The mind 
of Tsu-Hsi was undoubtedly noble. She committed murder 
either because it seemed to her politically necessary, or because 
she did not see anything evil in it (no Chinese regards the 
process of conveying people from life to death as anything 
extraordinary), or finally, because she had not learned to resist 
her impulses. Her subjects had complete understanding for 
these circumstances. They understood that violence, in the case 


84 CHINA PART V 


of people in the higher and the highest positions, does not nec- 
essarily mean more than an angry shrug of the shoulders in the 
case of a lowly individual. They knew, moreover, how diffi- 
cult it is to remain controlled in the fulness of power, and they 
therefore made less demands upon their emperors than upon 
their equals. The Chinese are tolerant from understanding, 
tolerant to the point of lack of character. This explains why 
precisely this people, whose world philosophy rests on a moral 
basis more than that of any other, who recognise no one as 
juridically fit to govern unless he is also morally qualified for 
the task, nevertheless tolerate more bad government in prac- 
tice than any other nation of a comparable level of civilisa- 
tion. The Chinese do not believe that men can be perfect; 
they doubt the possibility of the flawless functioning of any 
institution. They look sceptically upon any improvement; they 
take it as a fact that high officials incline towards violation and 
low ones towards chicanery, and they are content if abuses and 
evils do not exceed a certain limit, which they silently recog- 
nise as inevitable. What a high official said to me the other 
day with regard to the famous ‘squeeze’ was very characteristic: 
one should differentiate between ‘pure squeeze’ and ‘dirty 
squeeze’; the man who extorted only as much as he needed to 
keep himself in decency (for the official salaries are insufficient 
for this purpose) could not be reproached at all; and only he 
was evil who exceeded the reasonable minimum. The Chinese 
find their very corrupt régime bearable just because they under- 
stand so much and expect so little of men. They place signif- 
icance everywhere above fact. For this reason their system, no 
matter how badly it works in practice, seems to them better than 
ours, whose practical advantages they do not deny, because the 
significance of theirs is on a higher level. Theirs is based upon 
a moral foundation, ours is not; and this is the decisive con- 
sideration. Whether the officials are actually moral has little 
to do with the matter, however desirable it would be. And 
finally, they demand of their government, in the last instance, 
only one thing: authority. Authority pure and simple. This 
is the logical consequence of their ideal of non-government. 
Any authority is better than none at all, and a bad one is better 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 85 


than a good one in so far as it is better justified according to its 
meaning. 

The boundless respect of the Chinese for law and order 
brings with it simultaneously a surrender to occasional irregu- 
larities. It cannot be denied that experience speaks for, not 
against, the appropriateness of this point of view. In this 
gigantic empire, in which radical measures have never yet 
been taken against existing abuses, more continuous order has 
reigned on the whole than in all states managed with greater 
energy; in this country without police, with authorities of 
dubious integrity, there is on the whole less theft, murder, 
breach of faith, quarrels and bickerings than in the well- 
organised German Empire. Nevertheless, I must agree with 
those who find most unsympathetic the peculiarities of the 
Chinese who guarantee the functioning of this state. The 
Chinese middle classes lack moral courage, they seem utterly 
incapable of heroism; they never risk their own skins; they 
prefer to tell a lie rather than speak the truth if the truth 
could cause them any inconvenience. The Chinese is the proto- 
type of the utilitarian. And he is consciously proud of the 
fact. This is true not only of the bourgeois: Laotse says of the 
masters of antiquity: 


Hesitating like the man who traverses a river in winter, 
Cautious as the man who fears his neighbours on all sides, 
Reticent, like visitors, 

Simple, like unused material, 

‘They were wide as profundity, 

They were impenetrable as opacity. 


And further: 
It is their nature to love retreating. 


The so-called noble and gallant virtues cannot flourish where 
the world is regarded as unchangeable and where harmony 4 
tout prix means the ideal. The man who professes a static 
conception of the world is not ready to face death for any ideal, 


86 CHINA PART V 


he does not strive to change the world, he only takes given data 
into account. He who thinks and acts in this way can certainly 
not be noble. Is it not profoundly ironical that it is the Chinese 
who, precisely thanks to his unsympathetic peculiarities, has 
given the highest example of social order, attained the greatest 
social culture, and literally solved the social question for 
a long period? Will not ‘progress’ make us also progressively 
less noble, since growing order and security of life must also 
increase the value of the ideal of security? 


+ 


NO, the new system as such will not regenerate China. It has 
been shown that the condition of France has hardly changed at 
all, in spite of all revolutions and alterations in its régime, since 
the days of Louis XIV, and the fundamental thesis of Gustave 
Le Bon’s philosophy of history, that ‘les peuples sont gouver- 
nés, non par leurs institutions mais par leur caractére, ex- 
presses a fundamental truth of general validity. The abuses 
in China can only be removed by the spirit of its possible per- 
fection; its own specific perfection, not that of a foreign 
civilisation. It may well take over our machinery, our institu- 
tions, our schools, our methods; they will do good service even 
in China. But they will only do so when it is found possible to 
bring them into inner relation with the spirit of China’s ancient 
culture. 

It becomes clearer to me every day that if China is in need 
of reform it is not because of the old system as such, but be- 
cause the old spirit has disappeared from it. No matter 
whether an ideal state of affairs ever existed such as is tradi- 
tionally reported of the days of Yao, Shun and Yu—even 
Confucius and Mencius complained of decadence!—China has 
for centuries been nearer to its ideals than any historical nation, 
and the spirit which made this possible once upon a time is 
still alive within it to-day. Only it has grown exceedingly 
weak. The most distinguished Chinese are too highly bred; 
they lack virile strength; they wail and moan where they ought 
to act. At the same time, what a difference lies between 
them and the class whom the revolution has placed at the helm! 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 87 


These are without any moral basis, without roots in the pro- 
foundest sense of the word. They lack, like the Russian anar- 
chists and nihilists, all sense of historical evolution, and they 
will therefore be able to destroy, but never to build up again. 
A regeneration of China, I am convinced, is conceivable only 
in the spirit of Confucianism. May God grant that it still 
possesses the requisite strength! 

Unfortunately, the spirit of Confucianism, which preserves 
what exists at its highest level like no other, is very little suited 
to renovation. I lunched yesterday with an old priest, who was 
glowing with enthusiasm for his religion, who saw in it the 
salvation of the whole of mankind, and who traced the down- 
fall of China exclusively to the deterioration of Confucianism. 
I suggested to him that he should step forth and shake the 
people from their coma with inspiring words. He replied 
that he was not fitted for such a task; this was the business of 
the emperor and of the highest authorities; the condition into 
which he had been born confined his attention to the faithful 
fulfilment of his duties towards his parents and his family. 
And, he added, if all sons showed their fathers’ piety, then 
everything else would work perfectly of its own accord. Once 
more this hopelessly static attitude, according to which every- 
thing in the world is in perfect equilibrium, and which cannot 
even conceive of an accelerating motive, a motive which might 
transmute a low condition of equilibrium into a higher one! 
How is the world to be rejuvenated subject to such assump- 
tions? It can only be regenerated of its own accord. If every 
one fulfils his immediate duty, a molecular transposition is 
brought about in the system of the world which slowly leads 
to the highest condition of equilibrium. This path has all the 
advantages of a process of growth; once it has led to a maxi- 
mum of good results, then this stands on a firmer basis than 
could be brought about by any other method; hence the in- 
credible length of the great periods in China, hence the mar- 
vellously solid structure of the Chinese state even to-day. But 
such a process requires a tremendous amount of time, while, 
under modern conditions, all development, thanks to the record 
established by Europe and to the new circumstances which its 


88 CHINA PART V 


influence has created, must take place very rapidly if it is to 
lead to any goal at all; in fact, the mere possibility of its per- 
fection in such circumstances is questionable. What, then, is 
to be done? I am certain that the process of rejuvenation 
should proceed from the spirit of Confucianism, in spite of 
everything enumerated above; this spirit is rooted so deeply 
and inwardly in the race that it would not be possible to sub- 
stitute another for it. It would, moreover, be a crime to 
attempt its eradication, for in idea it is the highest which 
has ever formed the basis of any society. Nothing more ideal 
could be conceived than a community whose outer order was 
entirely guaranteed by the moral culture of its members, in 
which mechanical means were superfluous; this is not only the 
early Chinese ideal, it is the ideal of humanity. We too will 
one day, if God helps us, come to be regarded as Confucians in 
this sense. But, of course, new and accelerating motives will 
have to be embodied in traditional Confucianism. 

This should not be incapable of execution, granted some 
degree of insight on the part of the leaders. Confucius stands 
at such an immeasurable height in the eyes of the people that 
they would permit any further idealisation of him. In fact, 
they would be highly satisfied if it were to be demonstrated to 
them that the new ideas, whose efficacy for good they will not 
be able to deny in the long run, are already laid down or pre- 
conceived in the holy writings, and they will accept willingly 
new truths which can be based upon old ones. Thus, it would 
appear to be the foremost problem of the leaders of New 
China to invoke the authority of Kung Fu Tse for all the re- 
forms which they contemplate. Thanks to the aphoristic nature 
of his dicta, this can easily be compassed technically; scruples 
as to the facts will hardly arise because Confucianism, on the one 
hand, will be rendered more profound thanks to the new inter- 
pretation which will transfuse it with such an amount of 
Indian and Christian wisdom, and, on the other hand, Western 
practice will gain a moral foundation such as it never had here- 
tofore, by reference to Confucian principles. They would, 
of course, falsify history in advancing such a new interpreta- 
tion: what does it matter? What progressive age has not 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 89 


acted similarly in so far as it still clung to the old ideals? 
What has not become of Christianity in the course of history! 
The religion of long-suffering has changed into one of ruth- 
less action; the sweet, merciful Saviour has become the proto- 
type of the modern self-determined personality! Every age 
has attempted to harmonise its real ideal with the traditional 
one, and this has always been achieved only by a falsification 
of history. All innovators who want to resurrect the ‘real’ 
Christ, from St. John to the prophets of New Thought, are 
really falsifiers of history, because they translate their own 
convictions, whatever their intention, into the helpless Past. 
This is not a reproach which I make, quite the contrary: it is 
impossible to take away man’s historical roots; the man who 
was born and educated in a Christian atmosphere is essentially 
a Christian no matter what he believes in; he never escapes the 
conceptions which formed his soul. But he interprets them in- 
dependently if he wishes to safeguard his personality, and 
brings them into harmony with the rest of his outlook on the 
world. 

In this sense, it ought not to be impossible to reform the 
Chinese Empire from the spirit of Confucianism; only, as has 
been said already, an accelerating motive must be embodied 
into it. Can this be done successfully, seeing that nothing 
characterises the Chinese more essentially than their decidedly 
static outlook? European history proves that such metamor- 
phoses take place. From the very beginning I was struck by 
the similarity between the early Confucian and the early 
Lutheran types of men; they seemed to me to be really children 
of the same spirit. As I pondered over this impression, it 
turned out to be well founded; both these world philosophies 
are really closely related. The Lutheran view is also essen- 
tially static, it too regards the existing classes as justified meta- 
physically or ‘divinely ordained’; it too regards suffering as 
more than action, patience as more than initiative, and the 
attempt to strive beyond inherited position as criminal; it too 
is a philosophy of endurance. Thus the Lutheran faith has 
called to life similar advantages and similar weaknesses. Its 
advantages were the culture of family life, of patriarchal 


90 CHINA PART V 


existence in general; its disadvantages were its inclination 
towards reaction, its inability to give new forms to life, to 
adapt itself to new circumstances, to change natural rigidity 
into the power of tension by free initiative. But yet it was 
Luther from whom originated a tendency which suffers in no 
way from the weaknesses of Lutherism: Calvinistic Protestant- 
ism. That is the religion of action par excellence, the greatest 
stimulus to initiative, to progress, to self-reliant organisation of 
life which has ever existed. No human type in the world is 
comparable in efficacy with that of the reformed Protestant. 
To-day this type is estranged from the Lutheran; yet it is its 
true descendant; and in the very last instance both are still 
one and the same. There is still a general spirit of Protes- 
tantism of which both professions partake. By analogy with 
this development I do not regard it as impossible that the 
spirit of Confucianism will one day take on a form, thanks to 
which the Chinese, without having to deny their history, will 
come to be no less progressive than Americans and Scotsmen. 


+ 


THE similarity between Confucians and Protestants is indeed 
striking. The matter-of-factness and sensibleness of the 
Chinese, their lack of plasticity, the dryness of their souls, are 
to be found in an only slightly altered shape in Protestant 
Europe and America. In both cases their conceptions of life 
are based on a curious mixture of belief in authority and self- 
determination; both types are marked by a noticeable lack of 
differentiation in their souls, and an equally noticeable forma- 
tive power with respect to the external world. The soul of a 
cultured Catholic is, no matter how paradoxical this may sound 
to the ‘enlightened,’ far richer than that of a Protestant; the 
education by a system such as the Catholic, which takes into 
account all the manifold influences of the soul and treats 
them all with understanding, whose forms create content and 
conversely produce a sense for form, cannot help developing 
the soul; whereas the uncomplicated and crude dogmatic sub- 
structure of Protestantism gives great moral support and a 
unique stimulus to action, but very little self-recognition and 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN gI 


almost no psychic culture. The Chinaman is inferior to the 
Indian precisely in the same respect as the Protestant is to the 
Catholic. It is extremely tiresome to discuss psychological and 
metaphysical problems with Chinamen. Again and again they 
serve one with the first principles of Confucianism, just as 
pastors do with the Augsburg confession; they seem to be 
incapable of fixing their eyes upon psychic facts as such and of 
realising that the metaphysical significance of manifestation is a 
possible problem. ‘Their understanding of religious problems 
in particular is infinitesimal. The average Chinese religiosity 
means, like the average Lutheran one, no more than firm belief 
in certain revealed facts and strict observance of a definite 
routine of life; genuine religious experience they do not know. 
The Confucian Church also (so far as such a description is per- 
missible), like the Lutheran, means essentially ‘authority’ and 
nothing more. But, on the other hand, in the same respect as 
the Protestants are superior to the Catholics, the Chinese are 
to the Indians. I know few things more coarse, less spiritually 
satisfying, than the religious dogmas of Calvinism; the faith 
of the meanest Catholic peasant is spiritually higher than that 
of a cultured Puritan; it has nevertheless created a type of man 
who excels in moral value all other Christian types. The fact 
is that what matters for practical life is not all-embracing 
insight, but singleness of character, and such a character is most 
readily produced by a simple doctrine. Thus, the Chinese 
are so marvellously cultured morally, just because they have 
troubled themselves so very little about the meaning of moral- 
ity, and have instead allowed the Confucian principles, which 
express indeed eternal truths, to take complete possession of 
them. Such a method no doubt makes people uninteresting, 
but it makes them efficient. 

So much for the problems of faith. As to the postulate of 
self-determination, this applies in China no less than it does in 
our case. Only it seems to me that in the Confucian world it 
enters into life at a higher level. Among us the profession of 
the ideal of autonomy easily takes the form of making men 
refuse to recognise anything which they do not understand, for 
which reason they reject the gradations of society and do not 


92 CHINA PART V 


accept the authority even of those who are demonstrably more 
competent than they are. This psychic attitude is as derogatory 
to culture as it is beneficial to the development of initiative; the 
man who believes in no one except himself cuts himself off 
from all the cultural influences which are included in the 
experience of otherss by breaking through the barriers which 
nature has set to his aspirations (for it happens only very rarely 
that a man is destined to greater ends than those which his 
inherited position would admit of), he really closes the gate 
which leads to his perfection, for perfection is only possible 
within definite limits. For this reason, the most superstitious 
Catholic is frequently on a higher cultural level than the so- 
called enlightened individual. In China self-determination 
always only means self-determination within given limits. The 
Chinaman thinks for himself, judges for himself, acts as he 
thinks right—but only within a definite sphere. Any one who 
hereupon should doubt his autonomy as a postulate of Chinese 
consciousness should try to order a Chinese servant about in 
the ordinary European way; he will have little success. He 
will discover that the Chinese servant, with all his respect- 
fulness, with all his assiduity and faithfulness of service, only 
does what seems right to himself; he does not really obey in our 
sense: his position is that of a man who obeys, but within this 
limit he is autonomous. In all details he wishes to decide what 
he has to do and what to leave undone. The same applies, 
mutatis mutandis, to all professions. In my opinion this estab- 
lishes in principle the best conceivable equilibrium between 
autonomy and heteronomy. Absolute autonomy belongs to 
God alone. Man may only be self-determinate within limits 
if his soul is not to take harm, and these limits appear ever more 
restricted the more he descends from the highest stage to 
low ones. 

One must not attempt to carry the parallel between Confu- 
cianism and Protestantism too far; perhaps I have gone too 
far already; Ku Hung-Ming, of whom I have seen a great 
deal of late, and who runs to excess in comparisons of this 
kind as few others do, may have infected me. In con- 
clusion, I should like to refer therefore to a few points in 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 93 


reference to which Confucianism and Protestantism appear to 
be quite incomparable. The former lacks the pathos which 
belief in an almighty personal God has given to the life of 
Protestants. No matter how heroic Confucians may be—their 
heroism has never that quality of grandeur which characterises 
the devout Protestant and Moslem; even in the highest in- 
stance, the case of the Confucian is rather that of a pedant’s 
obstinacy than of the sacrificial joy of great faith. This differ- 
ence is so considerable that it would change the entire picture if 
this pathos were not as much lacking in the Protestants of our 
day as it is in the Chinese. . . . The second radical difference 
between Confucianism and Protestantism is based upon the 
inartistic character of the latter. Protestantism recognises no 
connection between religious and artistic experience, creates 
no necessary relation between content and its form of expres- 
sion. Thus, the genuine Protestant has as a rule very little 
sense for form. The Confucian possesses this sense perhaps 
more than any other man. Thus I felt at home immediately 
with the Mandarin, who lately accompanied me to the Buddhis- 
tic cloisters and brought me to the verge of despair by his 
Jack of understanding of religious problems, as soon as I 
discussed the problem of style with him in his house, to the 
accompaniment of unending cups of tea. 


+ 


I am now living almost entirely like a Chinese; I have most 
of my meals outside the Embassy quarter. The change in 
itself does me good; an everlastingly identical mode of life 
renders the physical organism philistine, robs the mind of its 
agility. I am convinced, if the Hindus did not eat the same dish 
of rice three times a day, they would not appear so stereotyped; 
if change in itself were less curative, then such a great variety 
of cures would not be efficacious; and the fact that we Euro- 
peans feel the need for variety of food like no other race on 
earth has undoubtedly a close connection with our inventive 
impulses. One cannot of course deduce the peculiarity of a 
nation from its specific diet, although there is no doubt a close 
connection between them. The man who wants to escape 


94 CHINA PART V 


sensuousness loves vegetarian food, he who wishes to refine 
his senses prefers animal and spiced food. And so on and so 
forth. What is true in general applies no less in particular. I 
have always found that it is advisable, when studying a nation, 
to share their method of life as far as possible. And in China 
this process is delightful. 

My friends take me to those out-of-the-way gourmet restau- 
rants which are as typical of Pekin as they are of Paris. Only 
the arrangements of the Chinese interiors possess more style. 
They are very tiny cabinets particuliers, generally offering a 
view upon the surrounding hills, and are covered with pictures 
and handwriting; in the room in which we feasted yesterday, 
there were verses of Li Tai-Pes. This inn is said to have existed 
since the days of the Ming Dynasty. No matter how this may 
be, an atmosphere of refined culture predominates in it which 
has changed me too into a gourmet. I listened intently to the 
advice of the maitre d’hétel, who put the dishes together for 
us as a poet chooses his words, and his pure culinary idealism 
infected me irresistibly. Why should the palate be regarded 
as less than the eye and the ear? A great cook is creative in 
the highest sense. How does he know, when he invents a new 
dish, and when he mixes ingredients, tasteless enough in them- 
selves, in never previously attempted combinations, that his 
product will please strangers? How does he know what every 
dish requires? Whence his knowledge that this goes with 
that, considering that, as an eater, he has very little experience? 
If that is not genius, then nothing is. Accordingly a great 
cook nearly always professes decidedly the theory of Part pour 
Part. his was actually the case with old Frédéric in the now 
sadly deteriorated Tour d’Argent. He waited on no one per- 
sonally who was not specially recommended to him. He looked 
down upon his customers, just as the painter looks down upon 
his public, and he received me, when I visited him for the first 
time, with the comment that he had, on the previous day, shown 
a visitor to the door who had dared to order Burgundy with a 
certain dish. . . . And the gourmet—is he not, too, apprecia- 
tive of art in the most ideal sense? There is no doubt that 
humanity exaggerates the importance of vision and hearing. 


CHAP. 42 é PEKIN 95 


One sense is as good as another; what matters is how much one 
achieves by it. I can imagine that, through the organs of the 
nose and the mouth, a perfect outlook on the world could be 
gained which, in its own language, conveyed the equivalent of 
the mysticism of Master Ekkehart. This is denied to us men 
because even the greatest of chefs has never got his sense of 
taste developed as his chief sense. But animals, of whom the 
latter is true, for whom the sense of smell also means their 
sense of distance, as in the case of dogs and stags, are probably 
capable of this in principle. Let no one misunderstand this 
state of affairs: if among us the gourmet as a type is below the 
thinker, this is not due to the fact that he lives for his palate, 
but to the fact that the palate conveys all too limited recogni- 
tion. Even thought alone leads only exceptionally to the high- 
est achievements; in fact, it makes most people more superficial, 
more material, than they would have become without it. 

I have spent most enjoyable hours in these restaurants. The 
Chinese cuisine is exquisite, and equal in value to the French, 
regarded from the artistic point of view. Once we were served 
duck six times in succession, and its preparation was so deli- 
cately varied that it did not give the effect of repetition; while 
I had to admire that dish above all as a technical masterpiece 
which consisted chiefly of pickled jellyfish. How these unsub- 
stantial creatures could be dressed is beyond me. . .. The 
Chinese, of course, use materials which we are not accustomed 
to, but this does not speak against them: every habit is a matter 
of convention, and every adherence to habit is a limitation. 
Thus I am ashamed that at first I shuddered at a dish of mag- 
gots which afterwards turned out to be exceedingly delicious. 


+ 


iF only I did not have to drink so much! But I never guess 
the riddles which are asked during meals, and it is the custom 
of the country that the man who fails thus must drain the cup 
of rice wine to the dregs time and again. And this lasts for 
hours. Course follows upon course, riddle upon riddle, and 
these gentlemen never tire in emulating each other in sagacity. 
People like myself acquit themselves very poorly on such occa- 


96 CHINA PART V 


sions. The solving of Chinese riddles presupposes a delicacy 
of mind and a capacity to guess the whole directly from the 
slightest references, which probably no one possesses whose 
power of combination has not been developed to an almost 
improbable degree by constant occupation with Chinese writ- 
ing. For what my companions achieved playfully seems quite 
improbable. The solution of a riddle in reference to some 
casual word is often to be found in an unimportant quotation 
from the classics: it is solved without further ado, and gener- 
ally by several people simultaneously. Men who know how 
to handle their subjects thus playfully can be as scholarly as 
you please—they possess simultaneously vital minds and souls. 
Yes, these gentlemen are vital, no matter what worthy mem- 
bers of the Hamlin Academy they may be. Their expressive 
eyes sparkle merrily, they seem indefatigable in their carousals, - 
and their laughter is so infectious, so seductive, that I join in 
even when I do not know why. 

A famous doctor related how some time ago he fell in love 
with a sing-song girl. Eventually, life without her became 
impossible; and when his worthy wife died soon afterwards, 
he took the girl home. He now regards his house as a paradise. 
While he devotes himself to his weighty studies, he is yet 
constantly surrounded by her chirping gaiety, and just this 
made his earnestness completely productive.—A tear sparkles 
in the old gentleman’s eyes. No, the Chinese are not without 
feeling. 

How can the myth of the Chinese lack of feeling have come 
to exist? I have never heard people talk more vivaciously or 
laugh more heartily. The uncultured European always judges 
the man who is master of himself as dry and cold; this often 
happens to Englishmen. The truth is that the self-controlled 
potentialise their capacities; the inner life of Englishmen is 
not weaker but more intense (even if it is poorer) than that of 
the German. In addition, only the man who is really in posses- 
sion of himself can surrender himself truly. The Chinese, who 
never lose their equanimity, know how to relax for this very 
reason. And then their humour overflows and a thousand 


forces bubble forth all of a sudden. 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 97 


The Chinese feel no less deeply and richly, only differently 
from ourselves. If they are wanting in Christian love for their 
neighbour they possess instead a feeling for solidarity which 
we do not know; our sympathy replaces the high culture of 
reverence. If the Chinese show themselves occasionally to be 
hard, cunning and cruel, they are, on the whole, much tamer 
than we Westerners, to whom they have much the same re- 
lation—the comparison comes from Ku Hung-Ming—as 
domesticated animals have to wild ones. We appear to them as 
typically heartless, coarse and cruel; from their point of view 
no doubt they are right. But in the same sense we are right if 
their inner life seems poor to us in several respects. They cer- 
tainly do not know love, for instance, in our sense. I am think- 
ing of the famous novel P’ing-Chan-Ling-Y en, in which calli- 
graphic skill really plays the part of a love potion, of those 
‘willow studded streets’ (the quarters of the ladies of pleasure) 
within whose confines by far the greater portion of the Chinese 
life of love takes place: to most of the Chinese, love means 
about the same as it did to the men of European antiquity. 
Even St. Augustine did not know the feelings which we regard 
as belonging essentially to love. He knew desire, enjoyment, 
the animalic pleasure of proximity; and probably he knew the 
specific mental charm, the stimulating power, which women 
radiate. But of love for a particular woman for her own sake, 
he had no idea. But then: how many among us are capable 
of love in this highest sense? Most of that of which we believe 
that it lifts us above the rest of humanity is something which 
"we possess only in idea. ... 

i 

my Chinese friends are scandalised because I do not betray 
any intention to marry: ‘Surely you are not a wolf, no rapacious 
animal, that you should dare to place yourself above the uni- 
versal order!’ I reply to them that I would have married long 
ago if I had been born into the world as a Chinaman, or even 
as a European, if the problem with us were a comparable one. 
But to-day that is not so. What should be a function of the 
race, implies an individual problem for us, and the man who 


98 CHINA PART V 


cannot regard marriage like that, because his consciousness is 
not capable of being centred in the instinct for mating, simply 
does not marry. 

In all seriousness: the new individualistic view of the mar- 
riage problem implies a misunderstanding, and is in principle 
beneath the Asiatic attitude. Procreation is a matter of racial 
concern, and should be regulated in such a way that individual 
preferences play no decisive part in it. The problem would 
be different if there were a necessary connection between the 
latter and what is best for the species. But such a relation 
exists only exceptionally. Unfortunately, it is not true that 
children of love are necessarily valuable children—for every 
bastard who possesses genius there are a thousand mediocrities. 
Unfortunately, it is not true that nature, as Schopenhauer 
asserts, avails itself of personal inclinations in order to achieve 
its higher purposes—for it does not know higher purposes; it 
cares nothing for the ennoblement of the human race. It does 
seem as if incompatibility of husband and wife—and even this 
has not been proved quite conclusively—exercises an un- 
favourable influence upon their progeny. On the other hand, 
it is absolutely certain that passionate inclination does not 
guarantee that the children will turn out well. The individual 
and the species do not coincide in this connection, their rela- 
tion is rather one of polarity: the former increases at the ex- 
pense of the latter, which, for its own part, flourishes at the 
expense of the former; this is the meaning of the well-known 
fact that great men rarely leave heirs, and that those races de- 
generate last in whom the type dominates the individual. It 
is from this angle of recognition that the marriage problem 
should be attacked and solved. This still happens in Asia. 
Nothing could be wiser than to present marriage as a self- 
evident duty which no one may evade, and in whose fulfilment 
the wishes of the individual are not in question, while only the 
good of the race should be considered; for by this means two 
things are attained simultaneously: firstly, the certain continu- 
ance of the race under the most favourable circumstances; and 
here the family always has a clearer view than the personally 
interested individual. The fact that marriage intermediaries 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 99 


are good judges is proved beyond doubt by the incredible 
longevity of Eastern families and by the rarity of the phenom- 
enon of decadence. Secondly, however, to begin with, this 
fundamental decision of the marriage problem against the con- 
sideration of individual feeling removes all odium. If mar- 
riage is regarded as a matter of course, as a stage upon the road 
of life, then it hardly plays any part in the consciousness of the 
individual; he does not put the question whether he is ‘really’ 
absolutely happy, and for this reason he cannot become alto- 
gether unhappy; as to the typical advantages of married life, he 
will partake of them no less than under other assumptions; he 
has a home, is free from the restlessness of the man whose 
race-instincts remain unsatisfied, his consciousness is enlarged 
in the care for his progeny. These typical advantages are 
always the decisive ones for the individual, even if he concludes 
his marriage subject to purely individualistic considerations. 
Where, then, are the disadvantages of the Asiatic system?— 
They are obvious enough. A perfect marriage in the European 
sense—that continuous growing together—hardly ever occurs 
in the Far East. But we must think here on large lines: are 
such marriages by any chance numerous among us? I have 
only seen very few, but I have noticed all the more frequently 
that the ideal of perfect wedlock has lowered the parties con- 
cerned. When husband and wife deceive themselves into think- 
ing that they are made for each other when this is not so, they 
do not develop, they stunt one another; their consciousness 
idealises what should not be idealised, commonplace ideals de- 
termine the whole course of their life, and the eagle becomes a 
mere cock-pigeon. For this reason, married men are so fre- 
quently on a lower level than single ones, and even married 
women are often less than maidens, no matter how contrary to 
nature this seems. The Chinese, for whom the married estate 
is no ideal but simply a matter of course, and who generally 
proves himself to be an admirable father and husband, owing 
to his peculiar sense for the order of nature, is never lessened 
by being a married man. I once wrote: ‘He who procreates 
himself renounces his personality’*; this applies also to the 
1 Vide the author’s Unsterblichkeit, 3rd ed. 


100 CHINA PART V 


Chinese; but he renounces as little as can be renounced. As 
married life appears to him to be a matter of course, it does 
not fetter his consciousness. Though he grants more rights 
to the species than we do, his individual consciousness is freer 
from racial ties. é 

This, then, would appear to be the decisive factor which 
must be adduced against our attitude towards the marriage 
problem: while, on the one side, we raise matters of breeding 
to the level of personal problems, we drag, on the other hand, 
emancipated personal consciousness into that of the genus. 
The result is absolutely negative. The race is badly preserved 
in our case, degenerates or dies out, and the individual has 
less freedom than in the East. It is surely a serious miscon- 
ception to see, in the extraordinarily individualised modern 
eroticism, for instance, a proof of heightened self-conscious- 
ness: it would seem here, rather, as if racial instincts had been 
raised unnaturally into the sphere of self-consciousness, which 
accordingly loses its own nature. Individualisation in this 
sense is no sign of emancipation. The other day a French novel 
fell into my hands: I can hardly say how shallow the typically 
Western view of love seems against the background of the 
East. The love for a particular sensuous being is to be the 
meaning of life. . . . This is a terrible misconception, even in 
the case of the purest love, and proves superficiality, even in 
the case of the profoundest inclination. The Upanishad 
teaches: ‘The husband is not dear for the husband’s sake but 
for the self’s own sake.’ And this doctrine, and not Western 
romanticism, is right. Of course, a particular individual man 
can be the exponent of the highest to another—hereupon rests 
the possible divinity of marital love—but it remains in itself a 
pure question of the species, and to make it into a personal one 
can only be done at the expense of personality. Moreover, 
experience teaches the man better than to treat generalities 
individually. Most men with distinguished minds complain 
that women do not do them justice in that capacity, but merely 
as ‘famous’ people or as productive, powerful beings, and 
highly talented girls complain similarly that men only value 
their typical qualities. The fact is that in sexual love the 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 101 


species manifests itself; a personal view of this impulse implies 
a metaphysical misconception. This does not occur often in 
the East. For this reason, love has rarely produced such fair 
blossoms there as among us; they flourish only where their 
significance is overestimated, and personally I would be sorry 
to miss them. But I am too honest to justify my preferences 
objectively: I know, rather, that the view of the wise men of 
the East, which accords to the species what is due to it, while 
basing the self-consciousness in other spheres, is the higher and 
more beneficial attitude. 


+ 


. . . | nave read over what I have written, a day later. It 
is correct, of course, rather more in idea than in practice, for 
there is no doubt that our family life is above that of the 
Chinese, because of our profounder understanding of human 
rights in general, and particularly of the dignity of women. 
But it applies in idea. Our next duty would be to re-establish 
on our higher level of individualisation the fundamental 
relation between the genus and the individual which exists in 
the East. The continuance of the species must not be per- 
manently exposed to the caprice of inclination, for this would 
inevitably lead to the extinction of the race. The days, of 
course, are past in which man and woman could, like animals, be 
brought together by the decision of an outside party, but they 
must now learn to do from free choice what used to be done for 
them. They must now learn to conduct the procreation of the 
‘species as such from personal assumptions; they must unlearn 
drawing consequences from individual inclinations, in which 
they may otherwise indulge at pleasure, but which could harm 
what is super-individual. It is possible to imagine a general 
state of affairs in which men and women are so far developed 
that they could differentiate at will between their personal ego 
and that of their species, and in which, for this very reason, 
they would be able to establish perfect harmony between the 
two. 


+ 


102 CHINA PART V 


TO-DAY at last the spirit of Chinese classicism has taken 
hold of me. There is no method of approach from the outside 
to the spirit of a living culture, it is a monad without windows; 
the man who has not been possessed by it will never acquire it. 
And this spirit seems proportionately more exclusive as the 
word has become flesh. It is just possible to understand 
Protestantism without being converted to it; Catholicism 1s 
only understood by him who has at any rate felt in a Catholic 
way in certain moods; in the same sense, French civilisation is 
more exclusive than German culture. As to Chinese culture: 
if any apparently abstract entity can lay claim to concrete 
reality, then it is the ‘spirit? of this culture. It is independent 
to such a degree that the individuals who are animated by it 
almost cease to be individuals: they give the effect of mere 
representatives.—What I had often experienced as a fact out- 
side of myself became my personal experience this morning, 
when I tarried, in the company of a scholar, learned in the 
classics, in the temple of Kung Fu Tse. 

In the courtyards of this temple, which are decorated by the 
mortuary tablets of all the sages of the country, the great state 
examinations have taken place ever since the Yuan Dynasty, 
and the name of every one who passed them with honours is 
handed down to posterity upon a stone tablet. Next door, ina 
peaceful hall, the, works of the nine classics are engraved upon 
the enduring marble. Every year in this very place the em- 
peror used to read his own poems aloud. There is an atmos- 
phere of culture in this place, of an intensity such as, to the 
best of my belief, I have never known. It penetrated into my 
being irresistibly. And as I entered into the soul of my literary 
companion, who explained the monuments and descriptions to 
me with a voice trembling with reverence, and who read to me 
now and again, with eyes shining with enthusiasm, famous mes- 
sages from the classics, I conjured up the spirit for which I had 
been searching. 

What a unique spirit! It is, no matter how unexpected it 
may sound, the incarnate spirit of classical philology, and yet 
it is no pale ghost, but quite a substantial creature, perhaps 
the most solid that I have met with for a long time in this 


CHAP. 42 | PEKIN 103 


sphere; its density seems to me to be considerably greater 
than that of the scholar who serves as my intermediary. Here, 
then, the spirit of a definite literary tradition has actually be- 
come the soul of a vital section of men. I can turn whichever 
way I[ like, I can strike whatever chords of my being I choose; 
this spirit will not release me. I experience everything as the 
expression, explanation, completion or illustration of classical 
wisdom, and in the very form which makes its peculiar style. 
And, strange to say, I should feel oppressed, but I cannot say 
that I do; it seems to me as if my possibilities of experience 
were not in any way restricted; they only seem to have taken 
on a different colour. But no: of course I am confined within 
narrower bounds, only I am no longer able to perceive it; I 
have exchanged my normal consciousness against another one; 
and I ought to know, as a philosopher, that the rose, from her 
point of view, is not in a position to realise in what way she is 
inferior to the violet. All that I can recognise immediately, 
and what should stand the test of objective criticism, is that I 
am infinitely more unequivocal than usual; I react to all im- 
pressions according to a unified plan, all my ideas spring from 
an identical source, and, above all, I find no hesitation what- 
soever in the process of expressing myself: where as a rule I 
search laboriously for corresponding forms, I now slip into 
traditional forms instinctively, and I feel nevertheless that I 
am expressing myself intrinsically, originally and personally. 

This is a very significant experience: as far as its general 
quality is concerned, it is not new to me: the spirit of Catholi- 
cism possesses One in just this way. It too does not give to one’s 
consciousness new content but rather creates a new form of 
consciousness; it too is so all-penetrating that it takes hold 
of every impulse of the soul; it too has the power of leading 
over all personal experiences into objective forms, so that even 
the freest spirit does not feel necessarily tied by its dogmas, 
while the most spontaneous and vital individual not infre- 
quently finds a means of personal expression in the observance 
of traditional ritual; this spirit too really creates a special 
variety of men. But this is more intelligible in the case of 
Catholicism, for its spirit represents an organism so highly 


104 CHINA PART V 


developed and so universally and delicately differentiated, 
that it includes within it the possibilities of the richest indi- 
viduality. The spirit of Chinese classicism, however, must be 
described as poor; its fundamental ideas are few in number, 
and its ramifications are scanty. How is it that nevertheless 
I do not experience a feeling of poverty, and that the Chinese 
scholar, potentially at any rate, is a complete being? For 
the Puritan, the child of an equally poor spirit, is not com- 
plete, nor is the Buddhist, not to mention the European classi- 
cal philologist, who also belongs to the same genus as the 
Chinese scholar. The cause is, what I have recognised again 
and again as the main characteristic of Eastern wisdom: the 
concentration, to which it owes its origin, and the concentra- 
tion with which it is studied. The teaching of the wise men 
of China is sparse and monosyllabic, not because it excludes, 
but because it condenses; its dicta, understood in the way in 
which the cultivated Chinese understand them, contain within 
themselves the quintessence of all that could possibly be meant. 
And this is true of its expression as well as of its meaning. 
The more profoundly a connection of facts is understood, the 
nearer one approaches the point of intersection of the co- 
ordinates which serve to determine it, and the less concepts are 
in question. In the case of our arithmetical means of ex- 
pression (in which we must necessarily represent also Chinese 
wisdom) this does not appear always quite clearly; in the case 
of the algebraic method of the Chinaman, however, it is so 
obvious that the classical expression appears as the only possible 
one from the point of view of every one who has seized its 
meaning. And this is the aim and result of the specifically 
Chinese training. It sounds grotesque to us that a man should 
devote ten or twenty years to the study of Confucius alone: he 
does not study in the way we do; he meditates every individual 
sentence until its meaning has permeated his inner being, and 
when he has reached his goal, it does not mean that he has un- 
derstood Confucius in our sense, but that the spirit of the great 
teacher has taken complete possession of him, just as a great 
passion takes possession of men. In this process philology ac- 
quires a new meaning. If it can be presupposed that the spirit 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 105 


of a culture has been acquired, then really nothing else matters 
than to turn all one’s attention to its expression, and when 
this expression can be found to perfection in classical litera- 
ture, then philological study is really the gateway to humanity. 
Our philologists credit European classical studies with similar 
importance; they too assert that men of classical education who 
are masters of Latin and Greek, and know their Cicero, are a 
match for all the problems of life. But this is no longer true 
in Europe. The spirit of Greece and Rome is not our spirit at 
all, but its ancestor. And, no matter how perfect that spirit 
was, it does not help others to perfection, as does the Chinese 
spirit, because its roots do not go so deep. This spirit embodies 
significance as it were in itself, beyond the realm of appear- 
ances; the other does so in the form of a particular phenomenon 
which differs in quality from that other which is our existence. 
For this reason the classical philologist cannot be a complete 
being in modern Europe, and classical education is not essen- 
tial to perfect development of personality, and is of little use in 
acquiring the mastery of life, no matter how valuable its posses- 
sion may be otherwise. In China it makes men perfect and 
fits them, moreover, for practical life. It was with very good 
reason that, until the great revolution, all official posts were 
occupied by doctors of philology, and the passing of the literary 
state-examinations was regarded as an absolute proof of com- 
petence. The Chinaman who had inwardly assimilated the 
spirit of his classics was a match for all the manifestations of 
early Chinese life, in the same way as Americans are a match 
for their own if they are possessed completely by the spirit of 
initiative, no matter how mediocre the rest of their knowledge 
may be. 

But, on the other hand, this spirit is a mature organism. It 
can procreate itself and act—but it cannot become rejuvenated; 
it will not tend to the salvation of the China which no longer 
contains the world within it. It is, moreover, in spite of all its 
advantages, too much a spirit of philistinism. If the philolo- 
gist, the scholar, the literary man, can be revered by a nation as 
its ideal type, then the peculiarities of this variety of men must 
also apply to its essential being. And it is so. I am entering 


106 CHINA PART V 


freely into the spirit which possesses me: yes, it is unbend- 
ing, pedantic, rigid, precocious and whimsical. My conscious- 
ness is that of a schoolmaster, or, to be more precise, that of a 
pushing model pupil, overproud of what he has acquired. 
To-day I could do nothing foolish, it would be impossible for 
me to fall in love, unless it were with a girl who was a model 
pupil; I would never dare to pursue a thought whose direction 
had not been pointed out by authority. Significance apart 
from the letter does not interest me. And the worst is that I 
am very well pleased with myself in this garb, that I feel no 
desire beyond the confines of my philistinism. Yes, the pro- 
fundity which found exhaustive expression once has by that 
very fact become superficial. For a short period the surface 
appears to be profound, but an intimate change soon takes 
place by which it becomes superficial once more; the spirit 
which was originally embodied in the letter becomes eventu- 
ally resolved in it again. Thus, the importance of every 
cultural value is ultimately a question of time. The Chinaman 
concerned with the Eternal has, therefore, more inducement 
than all other men in the same position to deny manifestations 
altogether. 


+ 


I spEND many hours each day with Ku Hung-Ming and his 
friends and supporters. He is a man of such wit and such a 
fiery temperament that I am sometimes reminded of a Latin. 
To-day he was explaining at great length how wrong the Euro- 
peans, and especially the sinologists are, in considering the 
development of Chinese culture quite by itself, without com- 
parison with that of the West: for both have evolved, accord- 
ing to him, within the frame of an identical formula. In both 
there has been an equivalent of antiquity and medizvalism, 
renaissance and enlightenment, reformation and counter- 
reformation, Hebraism and Hellenism (to use the terms of 
Matthew Arnold), rationalism and mysticism; and the parallel 
is to be drawn even in detail: even in China, for instance, there 
has been a Bayard. I do not know Chinese history sufficiently 
to test the soundness of these comparisons, and I rather suspect 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN 107 


Ku Hung-Ming, as I do the majority of his countrymen, 
of practising rather too cheap a form of intellectualism, such 
as flourishes, for instance, in Southern Italy. This much, 
however, is true: all historical conditions are special manifesta- 
tions, brought about by particular circumstances, of the natural 
forms of human life, which are the same everywhere; and 
since all possible combinations of circumstances vacillate round 
a few types whose sequence appears to be subject to one rule, 
it cannot but be that all peoples of comparable temperament 
also pass through comparable stages. Now Western Euro- 
peans and Chinamen are singularly comparable; they belong 
essentially to an identical fundamental type, the type of the 
‘men of expression,’ to which the Indians and the Russians, for 
instance, do not belong. It must be possible therefore to 
establish historical parallels. Nevertheless, my attitude to- 
wards the value of such comparisons is sceptical. Time may 
possess one single significance in itself—it certainly is not so in 
reference to men. The Chinese are men of long, and we of 
short, breath; for us mobility, for them quiescence, is the normal 
condition. How, then, can one make valid comparisons? We 
boast of our rapid progress: thanks to it, we will probably 
always remain barbarians, since perfection is possible only 
within given limits and we are perpetually changing ours. 
Nor do I accept it as agreed that we will continue to advance 
for long at the same rate: every direction in life is limited 
inwardly; we too will one day reach the end, and probably 
_ earlier than we think. I have often heard the following argu- 
ment, especially in India: since all cultures we are aware of 
start at a relatively high level—and this is correct—this pre- 
supposes that there has been before an exceedingly long period 
of slow ascent. Most certainly not! Every idea contains 
within itself, not only in theory but de facto, the whole of its 
consequences; it strives for actuality; it becomes embodied 
wherever matter permits it to do so, so that, as soon as the 
mental processes are set in motion at all, they take place with 
great rapidity. For this reason, as long as consciousness is 
asleep, zons may pass before anything new happens; this may 
occur either in the primordial state or, as in China, at a cer- 


108 CHINA PART V 


tain level of culture which has once been reached. But once 
it has been wakened, development takes place with extreme 
rapidity. How long was the span of time from the awaken- 
ing of the Greek spirit to its perfection? A century. How 
long did it take from the discovery of the principle of aviation 
until it was applied perfectly in practice? Not ten years. In 
the same sense it may very well be that we too shall shortly 
come to an end, and stop progressing at a level of development 
which will be not nearly so far ahead of that of China as 
we suppose. For in the modern sense of the word we too have 
been progressive people only for the last hundred years. 

Ku Hung-Ming does not miss a single opportunity of having 
a dig at Laotse. His fundamental thesis is that Confucius is 
the infinitely greater of the two because he understood signifi- 
cance as profoundly as Laotse, but did not retire from the 
world, but expressed his profundity in his mastery of it. If 
Confucius really had been, and had achieved, what Ku asserts 
of him, then, of course, he would be incomparably greater. 
However, this is not so. It would appear to be contradictory 
to nature that the same man should live altogether in pro- 
fundity and prove himself, at the same time, to be a mighty 
organiser of the surface; each one of these problems requires a 
special physiological organisation, and I know of no accredited 
case in which a man possessed both to a similar degree. Kung 
Fu Tse and Laotse represent the opposite poles of possible 
perfection; the one represents the perfection of appearance, 
the other perfection of significance; the former, perfection 
within the sphere of the materialised, the latter, within the 
non-materialised; therefore they cannot be measured with the 
same gauge. But Confucius must no doubt appear greater to 
the Chinese because they are practical to the extreme as a 
nation, and to this extent they have no direct relation to pro- 
fundity as such. The more I see of the Chinese, the more I 
notice how uninteresting their thoughts are. Their thinking 
is not their essential quality: their existence is the expression 
of their depth. Thus, Ku Hung-Ming is far more important 
as a man than as a writer and as a thinker. 


+ 


CHAP. 42 _ PEKIN 109 


iT is true, after all: the average Taoist is far below the aver- 
age Confucian. The Chinaman, as he appears to-day, is really 
essentially (I would almost like to say physiologically) a Con- 
fucian; if he denies the spirit whose child he is, he is unfaith- 
ful to himself. This appears already in the flaws of the 
popular Taoist theory, even where it is free from all magic 
and fetish additions. ‘To-day a priest of high standing ex- 
plained to me that while the concept of Tao applied no doubt 
to a principle in itself, the significance of the world lay all the 
same in its pre-established harmony; so that meditative absorp- 
tion does not really lead to a union with the creative mainspring 
of life, but to unison with the objective order of the world. 
Even this Taoist priest was, without knowing it, a Confucian. 
Once one has become identified with one’s deepest Self, then 
one knows of no given order any longer; from the Atman point 
of view even a supposedly conclusive existence appears as crea- 
tive development, and creation lies beyond all norms; all this is 
a matter of course for every Brahmin. For the Taoist, how- 
ever, the Confucian ‘harmony’ remains his fundamental idea, in 
spite of the profundity of Taoist doctrines. He only knows 
how to comprehend what is objective; he can experience noth- 
ing purely subjectively. 

The specific form of Taoism does not, on the whole, seem to 
me to be suited to produce a higher type of men; it is too wide, 
too manifold, too ambiguous for this purpose; and to this 
extent it does not signify much that the Taoist monk is below 
the Buddhist as well as the Christian one. But the fact that 
all the Chinese with whom I have had intercourse, including 
the Taoists, have no understanding whatever of the mar- 
vellous teaching of Laotse, makes one conclude that they are 
typically weak in subjective matters; they lack metaphysical 
consciousness. This does not surprise me. Something similar 
is true of all people to a higher or lesser degree whose typical 
aspiration is directed towards completion; of the Greeks, for 
instance, and the French. The man whose primary instinct 
is the tendency for expression will make his being objective 
like no one else. He will be, according to his talents, the great- 
est artist, the noblest man, the most perfect political being, 


110 CHINA PART V 


but he will not understand himself profoundly; as soon as he 
begins to think, he gets beyond himself and only perceives 
what is external. Thus it is that the thinkers of peoples who 
produce the greatest artists are usually rationalists. In the 
case of the Greeks this relation did not appear unequivocally, 
on account of their Dionysian impulses, which, especially in 
the case of their philosophers, frequently held the balance 
against their Apollonian tendencies: in the case of the Chinese 
it appears in an extreme degree, because the Chinese are ‘men 
of expression’ in the extreme. There is probably no more 
inward or more profound art than that of China, but the proc- 
esses of thought are nowhere more arid in their effect. How 
unbearably boring and dry are the discourses of Mencius! 
Quite unconsciously they evoke the picture of the most pedan- 
tic of all schoolmasters. In reality, however, Mencius was 
undoubtedly a very cultured gentleman, of perfect moral 
culture, with the most delicately shaded sense of form, in whom 
everything external appeared to be animated from within. 
Only the processes of thought were no corresponding means 
of expression for him; he was unable to give a voice to his ego 
by thinking. 

Philosophising is, as it were, unnatural to the Chinese, 
although they lead the most philosophical of all lives; their 
wisdom expresses itself in what they represent by their lives, 
not by their thoughts about it. Nevertheless, they have pro- 
duced some of the profoundest thinkers of whom we know. 
What sort of men can they have been? I dare say there was 
much in them of the fool and the charlatan; they must have 
been typical, even extreme, examples of the co-existence of 
great wisdom and great insufficiency. When the wise man 
in the Tao-Teh-King exclaims: ‘I am undecided, without a 
sign for my actions, like a little child which cannot laugh as 
yet; I have the heart of a fool. I am unquiet like the sea, I 
am lazy like a good-for-nothing’—I do not think that this is to 
be understood only ironically; the wise man will, with that 
curious lack of vanity which characterises the Chinese so fre- 
quently, have given a faithful picture of himself. At any rate, 
it gives us food for thought that the Chinese people, whose 


CHAP. 42 PEKIN III 


feeling for human greatness is unrivalled in its acuteness, is 
honouring the Taoist sages more as magicians than as ‘noble’ 
and ‘perfected’ men. 

Nevertheless, there may have been Taoist saints who might 
be regarded as the greatest of all. There is a superiority in 
Taoism which exists neither in Buddhism nor Christianity nor 
even in Brahminism; for Taoism is the only Yoga system 
which has not established an equation between perfection and 
bliss. What an evil influence it has been in Indian and Chris- 
tian Yogis that they demand the coincidence of the highest 
condition with happiness! This expectation has frustrated 
their aspirations to become really free from themselves. Hap- 
piness can only be defined as a function of egoism; it is no 
possible condition for the man who has overcome his ego. The 
Taoists alone have recognised this fact. If a Taoist has ever 
existed who has known how to translate this recognition into 
life, he will probably have surpassed all the saints. 


+ 


HOw nature mocks all formulas! I had imagined that I had 
exhausted in my mind the possibilities of the Chinese literati, 
and now I meet a man whose mere existence gives the lie to my 
generalisation: a true scholar with a glowing soul of the most 
sublimated spirituality! In China, as everywhere else, many 
enthusiastic spirits are concerned to-day in calling a new world 
religion into life, and here, as everywhere else, these prophets 
are generally uninteresting. They are professorial natures 
who have been intoxicated by the (supposed) recognition of 
the one spirit which is at the basis of all higher religions, and 
who thereupon step forth and endeavour to better the world 
instead of writing harmless textbooks on comparative religion. 
The man with whom I spent this afternoon is animated by the 
most genuine religiosity; he reminds me in many ways of 
Calvin, only the latter’s characteristics appear softened by 
many a Franciscan trait, a thing which seems possible only in 
China. He sees the fundamental weakness of China in pre- 
cisely that which strikes every thoughtful visitor from the very 
first: that the spirit has died in the letter; and the one object of 


112 CHINA PART V 


his existence is to impart a new spirit to the letter. The spirit 
which he means is closely related to the Christian spirit of St. 
John the Apostle. But of course he considers Confucianism 
as the best possible form in which to realise its meaning. The 
fact is that he is a Chinaman and a cultured one into the bar- 
gain, and he would not be one if he thought differently. The 
looseness of Taoism, the excessive softness of Buddhism, are 
not congenial to him. As to Christianity, its indubitable truths 
are, according to him, expressed in a language which is alien 
to the Chinese. If he should translate them into his own, they 
would result in nothing else than Confucianism, perhaps not 
in its traditional form, but in the Confucianism which he 
means; and for this reason the introduction of Christianity 
can consequently be disregarded. 

While I was listening to him and watching the play of ex- 
pression in his marvellously spiritualised face, whose language 
I could understand directly, I felt full of shame when IJ thought 
of the missionaries who dared to ‘convert? such ‘heathens.’ If 
only they would learn before they taught! Of course, my 
interrogator was not quite in the right; the deepest truth of 
Christianity cannot be resolved in Confucianism. But this 
last word will never be understood by the Chinese, just as little 
as the Europeans will ever penetrate into the innermost heart 
of the religion of the Indians; biological and historical barriers 
exist there. However, these barriers do not limit religious 
experience, they only limit the mental field of vision. Thus, an 
orthodox Confucian can be as near to God and give an equally 
true expression to the divinity within him, as the most enlight- 
ened of Indians; he can do so precisely in so far as he remains 
within the frame of his nature. 

How beautiful a good Chinese head is! It represents an 
extreme of expressive value—and by how much simpler means 
than in our case! A European must look ‘remarkable’ (for in- 
stance, he must have rugged features, wild hair, a powerfully 
marked cranium) if his head is to possess pictorial qualities; 
the Chinese are beyond looking remarkable. In their case the 
highest mobility has been condensed in simple curves, in calm, 
relaxed features. A good Chinese head, no matter how strange 


CHAP. 42 - PEKIN 113 


it may sound, seems more classic than an equally good Euro- 
pean one, 


aa 


on the whole, there is no lack of men and communities, no 
matter what may be said concerning the lack of religiosity 
among the Chinese, who have placed their powers at the service 
of a religious revival of China. Nevertheless, I can understand 
perfectly now that the missionaries regard the Chinese as 
irreligious: for none of them is religious in the Church sense of 
the word, not even their most zealous reformers; none of them 
seems to be anxious to gain a victory for a new profession of 
faith. Probably such militant procedure is opposed to the 
temperament of the Chinese: no matter how intransigently 
conservative the Confucian may be in his attitude—in practice 
he fought against and finally overcame Buddhism by absorbing 
the foreign doctrine, so that he now asserts that it is an ex- 
pression of his own Confucian outlook. From time to time 
fanatics have appeared, and they have been allowed to go their 
way, like everything else in this empire, until they came to a 
standstill of their own accord; but the average cultured China- 
man is no less tolerant than the Indian. I must constantly 
think of a conversation which I had with an exceptionally 
zealous and rough-mannered old Confucian priest: of course, 
said he, Confucianism was the absolutely perfect expression of 
truth; but the truth in itself, according to its inner meaning, 
we Christians possess also; that was a foregone conclusion. 
_ Compare such an attitude with that of a Lutheran pastor who 
is in debate with a Catholic! 

The new religious movements in China seem to me to be 
marked essentially by their lack of confessionalism and lack 
of ecclesiasticism. This is the natural consequence of that 
typically Chinese attitude to which I referred already in Can- 
ton, namely, that the Church is regarded as an ‘institution,’ 
as a practical, external organisation which has no inner con- 
nection with religiosity as such. How Protestant this trait is! 
The Church was always an institution to the Protestant, insti- 
tuted by God so as to keep the world in order; thus it could 


114 CHINA PART V 


not but be that every new formation, in the name of inward- 
ness, contained within it a tendency to separate from the 
Church, which was never the case in Catholicism, for which 
cults have an inner significance. What is happening more and 
more in the lap of Christian Protestantism, but which is 
openly admitted only rarely, is the natural tendency of Chinese 
Protestantism. Here we see how matter-of-fact considerations 
can, in certain circumstances, lead to the same goal as creative 
intuition. Undoubtedly religious feeling is weakly developed 
among the Chinese people; nevertheless, the latter has under- 
stood, perhaps more clearly than any other, that which is not 
essential for religion. In principle the Church has really 
nothing whatever to do with religion; the interrelation of these 
two things is a secondary matter in the conceptual sense; divine 
worship is magic in all circumstances. And while magic is a 
very important natural science and a noble craft besides, it has 
no religious significance. Being religious means striving after 
the highest self-realisation; endeavouring to transfuse all ap- 
pearance with the divine life. Such aspirations can be assisted 
by magic, which in itself, however, remains a mere technicality. 
Where, as in the case of the Chinese and the Northern Euro- 
peans, the temperament is a sober one, and where, moreover, 
the feeling for independence is developed so highly that men 
do not want to accept more assistance than they can possibly 
avoid, there development inevitably leads ever further away 
from magic; and thus away from the Church, from cults and 
from professions. 


+ 


wuy does the Confucian reach such a high degree of per- 
fection so frequently? This question imposes itself more and 
more upon me, the more cultured Chinese I meet. I cannot 
say that I have got to know a truly great man, a ‘noble’ one in 
the sense of Confucius; I cannot assert of any of my acquaint- 
ances that they impress me by their nature. But an extraor- 
dinary number among these gentlemen stand on a human 
level such as I have only met with exceptionally in other lati- 
tudes. This must be due to Confucianism. I will devote to 


CHAP. 42 . PEKIN 115 


the penetration of this problem the dusky twilight hours of 
a day on which the plundering soldiers do not make it seem 
desirable to drive about. 

The ideal Chinese is defined by the cultural ideal of his 
nation: the ideal of concretion; the inner meaning is to mani- 
fest itself exhaustively in appearance, for every one partakes 
of Tao and signifies, as a special phenomenon, a link in uni- 
versal harmony: he can therefore realise himself only if he acts 
in unison with the order of the world, and that means as 
long as he regulates his life strictly according to objective 
rules and laws. If I may further presuppose that the obedience 
to the recognised rules actually makes possible the highest 
degree of self-realisation, then it is inevitable that, in adhering 
to them, I become perfected, no matter what I may be as an 
individual. Thus my problem would be solved: the Confucian 
is so frequently on an unusually high level of culture because 
his highest ideal is an ideal of the norm, so that every normal 
being appears in principle fit to realise it; and because, more- 
over, the given setting of the ideal points for the Chinese the 
road directly to self-realisation. 

All races and religions have postulated ideals which are to be 
exemplary to every one. Every one of us is to be like Christ, 
every Indian like Krishna or like Buddha. But every one can- 
not become a saint, no matter how fervently he may strive, 
because this requires special talents which he does not possess, 
and for this reason Christians especially regard it as impossible 
that they will ever be able to attain to their highest example. 
Thus the example remains ineffective as arule. If it is effec- 
tive, the result is not beneficial for most men: it is not good for 
any one to want to be what is not in accordance with his nature. 
The Catholic priest is undoubtedly superior to the Protestant 
in idea; the clergyman ought to have reached the point at 
which he can live a celibate life without temptation, his sexual 
instincts ought to have been transmuted completely, he ought 
to have escaped from all natural ties, and he should be able to 
live only for others. But in the majority of cases he cannot do 
so, all the more rarely as religious temperament goes hand in 
hand, without exception. with sensuousness, and for this reason 


116 CHINA PART V 


it was a good thing that a different, cheaper type of priest 
received official sanction with the advent of the Reformation. 
The concrete value of ideals depends solely upon its rela- 
tion to given possibilities; only such as have a favourable rela- 
tion to nature, which ‘are attainable in principle, can be ad- 
vantageous. ‘The latter applies to a marvellous degree in the 
case of the Chinese. Their ideal does not presuppose an ex- 
traordinary, but an average, temperament which every one can 
assume of himself, and it is realised in the perfect development 
of an average nature. Thus a priori it does not frighten any 
one. It is not unattainable for any nature, it rather helps every 
one who strives after it seriously, to realise what he is. It is 
very curious how Confucius simply rejects everything abnormal. 
He says: ‘To recognise the unrecognisable, to attain the un- 
attainable; to perform deeds which would draw admiration 
from the coming centuries: these are things which I would 
never attempt.? And, elsewhere: ‘The way of Tao is not out- 
side or apart from the normal life of man.’ He cautions ex- 
pressly against overestimation of the ideal. In the Chong 
Yong he says: ‘Now I know why truly moral life is so rare; 
wise men regard the moral ideal as higher than it really is, and 
the fools do not know how to do it justice; noble men aspire 
too highly, they want to live high above their normal selves, 
and the ignoble do not strive enough.? Confucius seems to be 
anxiously concerned that the ideal might be overestimated. 
The ideal man is not considered the man who strives to con- 
quer heaven, but the one who does what lies nearest to hand, 
the modest individual who wishes to represent only what he is 
destined for. Not the genius is considered to be the highest 
man, but he whose indifferently gifted but supremely cultured 
personality gives perfect expression to the norm, for all individ- 
ual existence is the mirror of universal harmony. But Con- 
fucius lays all the greater stress upon expression. A wise 
man who stood on a high inward level was not yet to be re- 
garded as perfect: he had to express himself with dignity; the 
Wise man who expressed himself with dignity was not yet to 
be regarded as perfect either: dignity had to be sublimated 
into charm. Profundity could only be regarded as profundity 


CHAP. 42 - PEKIN 117 


when it transfused the surface altogether. How is any one, for 
whom the teaching of Kung Fu Tse is the word of God, whose 
education has been conducted in such a way that this teaching 
has become his very principle of life, not to advance upon the 
road to perfection? How is he, since this teaching actually 
includes the essence of all practical wisdom of life, not to 
approach perfection frequently? Every average individual 
must get further as a Confucian than as a Brahmin or as a 
Christian; only those who are not normal do not benefit. The 
subnormal individual remains farther below the norm than he 
would do subject to Christian presuppositions, because these 
give him more hope; the development of those who are above 
the average is impeded; and the abnormal individual meets 
with no understanding. Therefore, among the Chinese orig- 
inal individualities are rarer than anywhere else, the uncultured 
man is more blunt and failures are sacrificed. But the average 
reach a higher degree of perfection more frequently than any- 
where else in the world. 

Is the Confucian alternative, in a world which is not round, 
not the best possible, if one may assume that there can be 
an ideal of universal applicability? Perfection is the supreme 
goal which mortal men may aspire to, therefore all emphasis 
must be laid upon it. This, moreover, is the most humane 
course one can possibly take. For perfection is attainable in 
principle for every one; it is also the wisest in so far as, subject 
to assumptions which facilitate such a development, men can 
become great who would not become so otherwise; one should 
remember the greatness and profundity which distinguish 
sometimes insignificant women, that naive, innocent greatness 
before which even the wisest man bows so readily. And this 
brings me to the last consideration which speaks decisively 
for Confucianism: it creates men with great potentialities. 
The development of the feminine soul has almost always taken 
place, thanks to the external inhibitions of family life: in the 
same way the Confucians owe the high level of their humanity 
to their incredibly rigid system. The gentlemen whom I mean 
would never have attained anything like so deep a culture if 
they had been born and educated in Western latitudes; they 


118 CHINA PART V 


owe this to their static conception of the world as a static sys- 
tem. According to Chinese ideas, the universe stands still; it 
is perfect in itself, not to be perfected; thus ultimately nothing 
can be achieved by will, Life, however, presses upwards irre- 
sistibly, and remains a progressive and dynamic principle even 
where it is interpreted statically; thus, progress takes place in 
spite of everything. Only it takes place not externally but 
internally. Psychic energy becomes accumulated which finds 
no expression in initiative, and for this reason the average 
cultured Chinaman is characterised by a state of inner tension 
such as we find only now and again in an exceptional being in 
the West. 

The Chinese owe their superiority without doubt to the Con- 
fucian ‘ideal normality.? It is impossible to conceive a more 
salutary general ideal. Even the West is beginning lately to 
recognise this: public opinion is giving the preference more 
and more to normality as opposed to abnormality, the ascetic 
and heroic ideals are being replaced by the ideal of appropriate- 
ness to Nature, and perfection is valued higher than natural 
condition. The canonisation which Goethe is experiencing 
progressively in German-speaking countries is largely due to 
this very fact: of all our great men, he was a normal man more 
than any one else, he excluded fewer existences than all the 
others. Will Confucianism one day come to us? It is not 
impossible. It is the philosophy of normality, and, understood 
profoundly and essentially, according to its spirit and not 
according to the letter, it is undoubtedly the best philosophy 
for the masses. There is one point, however, on which we 
must not give way to any illusion: the philosophy of normality 
does not draw us upward, does not favour a high idealism, does 
not enhance our powers. Everything that goes to make up the 
highest pride of the West is due to the fact that it has desired 
the impossible; the Confucian always only wants the possible. 
Here one must choose one of two alternatives: either we desire 
the superman—then we can have no consideration for the 
masses; that was the situation until recently in the West; all 
supreme ideals, those of Christianity included, were destined 
for a select minority. Or else we want to lead the masses as 


CHAP. 42 © PEKIN 119 


they are to perfection—then one renounces the higher types. 
It is hardly to be doubted that, sooner or later, our democratic 
world will seize the latter alternative, whose ideal is the perfect 
normal man, if it constructs a model for itself at all. And 
it will construct one. Humanity is less aware to-day than ever 
before that ideals are not meant to be examples, which every 
one has to imitate, but embodiments of the basic tones of life 
to which every one is to attune his personal note; it seems less 
mature to-day than ever to deny the postulate of uniformity 
and to approach that highest condition in which every tone 
resounds only as itself in a harmonic relation to the basic tones, 
which, for their part, should resound powerfully and purely; 
modern life is further than ever from the ideal of the sym- 
phony. . . . Nevertheless, even if the ideal of normality 
should be proclaimed as the absolute ideal, it would be a mis- 
take to introduce Confucianism as it is into Europe. In order 
to see normality idealised in Confucius, one must be a Chinese. 
Only men who have not been individualised to a high degree 
can recognise so many regulations as being universally appli- 
cable, only minds of weak imagination can become enthusiastic 
at such a matter-of-fact example, only beings of great talent 
for expression, but small talent for conception, can find satis- 
faction in so poor a system. However strange it may sound: 
the more human beings an ideal, regarded in the abstract, is 
destined to lead to perfection, the less do its concrete expres- 
sions appear to be generally exemplary. Christ and Buddha 
embodied true ideals of humanity, however little the majority 
may emulate them directly; Confucius can only be an example 
to the Chinese; he does not rouse our enthusiasm. ‘This does 
not speak against him, but only proves once more the exclusive- 
ness of everything concrete. Englishmen will hardly under- 
stand our Goethe cult; it is strange to them that a pronounced 
pedant, a circumstantial, clumsy provincial, can represent a 
human maximum to a people; and Goethe really was, among 
other things, what they reproach him with. But in this same 
sense it seems monstrous to us that England could have made 
an ideal of Dr. Johnson, that thick-headed average Briton, 
without the least originality, who was more biased than any 


120 CHINA PART V 


Anglo-Saxon after him, the founder of that cult of prejudice 
which ever since has characterised the English middle classes as 
nothing else does, the roi des cuistres, as Sainte-Beuve so ad- 
mirably called him, the man who, of all those whose memory 
has been preserved by mankind, has pronounced the largest 
number of commonplaces with the greatest and profoundest 
conviction. But this is the fate of every ideal of normality 
which has been materialised. 


+ 


I am spending the last days I have in Pekin in excursions 
to the surroundings. On what a grand scale nature is here! 
How powerfully it enlarges one’s self-consciousness! The 
rhythmic uniformity of the landscape gives it the appearance 
of unlimited extension; the clear, dry air makes all distance 
seem illusory: I feel as if my vision reached to the boundaries 
of the world. If I had been born as the heir to the dragon 
throne in Pekin it would probably seem a matter of course to 
me to be lord of the earth; especially as no proof would be 
required. It would appear from the history of antiquity that 
the mere existence of the emperor is sufficient to keep the world 
in order. From the cradle on, the example of Shun would 
have been held up to me. This holy man only sat there, turned 
his face towards the south, and complete harmony predomi- 
nated. The seasons maintained their allotted spans, all sons 
served their fathers, all couples loved each other, all officials 
were trustworthy. I would be assured again and again: if only 
I brought my personality to perfection, then the cosmos would 
arrange itself of its own accord. And if I really perceived 
clearly what that meant, what immense importance was innate 
in me, and then looked out into the expanse of nature, then 
I would undoubtedly think: I am great! 

But I would think so without v@pis, in all modesty; I would 
perhaps think so in all humility. I would have the same feel- 
ing which takes hold of the mountaineer when at last he looks 
about him from the summit of his aspirations: the feeling of 
being great, yes, but in the midst of something so infinitely 
more great that he delights, as a matter of fact, much more in 


CHAP. 43 | HANKOW 121 


the consciousness of his being small. I, the emperor, am only 
a wheel in the mechanism of the infinite world; perhaps the 
greatest, the fly-wheel, but only one member in the organisa- 
tion. And thereupon I would think in humility of the unlimit- 
edness of my power. Why am I called unlimited when I am 
responsible for the whole of creation, where an insignificant 
carelessness on my part would result in unspeakable damage? 
They call me unlimited because no one stands above me. 
Somewhere or other the last authority must be reached. All 
moral efficacy is based upon authority; where this authority is 
not unconditional it is lacking altogether. The barbarians, 
the Christians, so I am told, transfer all unqualified authority 
to a god whom no one has ever seen. That must have been 
the invention of a cunning but unjust emperor who wanted to 
make things easy for himself; or whose moral sense was not 
sufficiently developed. I would be ashamed not to bear ex- 
treme responsibility. 

I escape from the soul of the Son of Heaven, and enter into 
one of the many who, in the shape of curious enquirers, come 
from the Far West to visit the imperial town of the Far East. 
What an amazing discovery! I have entered from something 
very great into something very small, and I find that the self- 
estimation of the latter is many times greater. He recognises 
nothing above himself; regards himself as the highest con- 
ceivable man, destined to rule the world. Moreover, he is 
irresponsible; he stands outside the solidarity of nature. 
Which autocrat is more worthy of reverence, the emperor, 
who bears consciously the responsibility for the processes of 
the world, or the free American, who boasts that he could 
smash it? 


43 
HANKOW 
O nN the way here from Pekin the train was held up sud- 
denly by soldiers. They were an independent division 


which belonged neither to the republic nor to the Manchus, and 
they were apparently bored and eagerly seized upon the few 


122 CHINA PART V 


opportunities for diversion which came their way. At first the 
situation did not look uncritical, no matter how uncritically 
the train conductors seemed to regard it: the soldiers attacked 
the carriages with fixed bayonets, and looked as if they were 
going to search the baggage. However, they did nothing; in 
the midst of the turmoil they seemed to wait for something; 
and when the ‘peacemakers’ came and began to talk to them 
with a gentle mien, they seemed to have found what they 
wanted. It took hours before the negotiations were concluded; 
but they let us pass on unharmed. 

What quaint soldiery! During my stay in Canton a battle 
raged between the troops of the Government and the pirates; 
but occasionally an interval occurred, and the enemies had 
the most peaceable and friendly intercourse as if they were not 
at war at all. The story goes in Hankow that residents who 
were playing football were molested the other day by the 
bullets which flew across from the neighbouring field of battle; 
they thereupon sent a message to the nearest general with the 
request to cease shooting until they had finished their match, 
and he is said to have acceded to their wish. The Chinese 
seem to be warriors as other people are cobblers or haber- 
dashers, that is to say, they do not connect any kind of idealism 
with the profession of arms; and while they practise it, their 
heart seems hardly to be in it. What wonder, in a realm whose 
people have, from immemorial times, professed peace @ tout 
prix as the highest ideal! In Chinese literature the general is 
rarely represented as a hero; he is often represented as a 
ruffan, and generally simply as a coarse churl. It has never 
been regarded as a disgrace in China if a campaign was lost; 
pre-eminence was always given to the weapons of the mind 
over physical ones. A quaint legend relates how envoys of a 
king of barbarians once came to the emperor and threatened 
him with war and conquest. He did not know at first what he 
should reply, because he was convinced of the worthlessness 
of his own army, and not sufficiently informed concerning that 
of the enemy. He thereupon thought of the poet, who hap- 
pened to be at his court: he no doubt would know how to frame 
such an answer that the envoys would depart in terror. The 


CHAP. 43 HANKOW 123 


poet was, as usual, full of wine; and it was only the empress 
who, with the assistance of the most beautiful of her women, 
succeeded with difficulty at last in waking him up from his 
inebriation. But when he finally realised what the trouble 
was, he improvised such a fine speech on the spur of the mo- 
ment, a speech animated by the spirit of such a superior force, 
that the envoys actually departed in terror and reported to their 
lord that his army was not a match against such forces. I have 
noticed several times, in conversation with Mandarins, that 
they did not admire but despised physical courage. They admit 
that it is useful occasionally, and that one must keep people 
who possess it; only they are not higher types of men; joy 
in fighting is to them a proof of vulgarity. They regarded 
the soldier as standing below the scholar, comparable rather 
with a bulldog than with man. 

We too are undoubtedly gravitating towards a condition in 
which the virtues of the warrior will lose in importance, and in 
which the failings of this type will seem greater than its advan- 
tages; and from many points of view this is desirable. But we 
will pay dearly for its advantages: we will become philistines, 
unprepared for sacrifice, and we will lose in nobility of outlook. 
Unfortunately, as things happen to be, the ideal of eternal 
peace is absolute only in relation to heaven. We who dwell 
upon earth require the instigation of material danger if we are 
to remain capable of idealism. How little round the world is, 
in spite of Galileo! Duelling is a very barbarous invention 
which must disappear. Even to-day it is contradictory to the 
whole of the rest of our attitude to life. Nevertheless, the 
human types who fight duels are in many ways superior to 
those who have got beyond this stage. Their prejudice forbids 
them in all circumstances to give in to natural fear, and it 
teaches them to act in accordance with the recognition that 
there are higher values than life; above all it educates them, in 
forcing them to allow their opponent equal chances of victory, 
to show respect in the highest sense to the personality of 
another. 

The turbid stream of the Yang-Tse rolls on before me. 
Thousands of sweating ccolies toil away on the steamers and 


124 CHINA PART V 


junks, loading, dragging, carrying, pushing, jerking, pulling, 
shoving. Such life suits the Chinese better than fighting for 
their fatherland. Their idealism appears in the manner in 
which they bear the hurden of the day. 


44 
ON THE YANG-TSE 


I AM now gliding on the kindly stream without which the 
immeasurable reaches of country through which it flows 
would be so much desert. The fall of the river is considerable; 
nevertheless, its waters seem hardly to move, so great and 
heavy is its mass, just as the flight of the wild goose seems 
slow compared with that of the wren. Everywhere on the 
shores of the Yang-Tse life is green and flourishes. Wher- 
ever I look, I perceive the intelligent activity of the peasants. 
Wherever I turn, they appear as the very hand of nature. 

This is the real, the immortal China. Since I have got to 
know its flower, I realise with redoubled certainty that the root 
of the whole of Chinese culture is in its peasantry. If the 
Confucian system did not represent the spiritualised expression 
of a fundamentally natural condition, it could never have be- 
come the skeleton of the whole of China. 

The families which ploughed the fields in the days of Shun 
and Yao still live on their inherited soil, deeply conscious of 
their language. They emigrate only rarely. Where the 
peasant toils during his lifetime, there he also returns to earth. 
The ploughed field is the cradle of the whole of China. There 
is no hereditary nobility. Every now and again one man or 
another succeeds in passing the great examination, and then 
he rises to a higher position. The mass remains eternally as 
it was. 

I do not know any one who has lived for some period 
amongst the Chinese peasants who did not learn to love them 
dearly and even to honour them. In them the virtues of the 
patriarchal age are really alive. Their life represents, as if it 
were a matter of course, what Confucius and Mencius have 


CHAP. 44 ~ THE YANG-TSE 125 


taught. Here all external order is born from the inner atti- 
tude, here no system seems even conceivable which is not based 
upon natural impulses. When have laws of state been neces- 
sary in primeval circumstances, in order to regulate the relation 
between the various members of the family? It is natural for 
parents to love their children and vice versa; it is natural to a 
clan to cling together. The more dense a population is, and 
the more peaceable and reasonable it is by temperament, the 
more do the natural elements become moral laws. It is so 
obvious that an existence such as theirs can only flourish sub- 
ject to harmonious co-operation, that it appears criminal, be- 
cause against nature, to disturb such harmony; it is, moreover, 
so obvious that this inevitable order oppresses no one who 
welcomes it as the realisation of his wishes, that it seems there- 
fore necessary to develop the natural social impulses as much 
as possible. In this way, love between members of a family, 
reverence before age and authority, have been cultivated so 
intensively by the Chinese peasants that they have become 
long ago the decisive factors of their souls. Nothing is more 
natural to primitive man than to generalise to infinity: thus, 
not only the whole vast empire, but the entire universe, has 
been understood as a community which is based upon the 
natural relation between the members of a family. Provided 
the sons evince the necessary reverence towards their fathers, 
then the rain will also come at the appropriate season. This 
ancient Chinese peasant wisdom, of which the simple people 
were hardly conscious, no matter how much they demonstrated 
it in life and action, subsequently became articulated by the 
masters of antiquity. And since they taught what was anyhow 
at the bottom of men’s actions, two things happened: their 
dicta were recognised as correct without further ado, and now 
that they had become conscious, they were obeyed with re- 
doubled attention. In this way it happened that Confucianism 
grew to be China’s form of consciousness more and more long 
after it had represented its form of existence. Confucianism 
became, of course, more differentiated, clarified and artificial 
as the nation progressed, but it never lost its original meaning. 

This was possible only thanks to the special historical cir- 


126 CHINA PART V 


cumstance that the Chinese have, from the very beginning 
until the present day, remained a nation of peasants, while no 
powerful castes were formed whose form of life was opposed 
to that of the peasants; while the infinitely complicated consti- 
tution of later times remained in essence patriarchal until 
to-day. Thus the dicta of Kung Fu Tse and Mong Tse were 
never in opposition to practical utility; they always remained 
appropriate to the age. The more a man was capable of 
thought, the more he had to be surprised at their wisdom; thus 
their prestige increased continuously in the course of cen- 
turies. And this was necessary if they were to retain their old 
efficacy. The ideas of the old masters were, no matter how 
deeply they were rooted in humanity, too simple after all; only 
uncomplicated, primordial souls can be resolved completely 
in the order of nature, but the soul remains the foundation of 
even the most developed individual. Thanks to the prestige 
which the Confucian dicta enjoyed, the most subtle minds were 
induced to absorb its meaning profoundly, with the result 
that that something remained alive, or came to life again, which 
exists only very exceptionally in the consciousness of non- 
Chinese men of culture. Hence the nature-like profundity, 
which generally distinguishes even the most refined Chinese. 
The feeling for what is original and genuine is always alive in 
him. The relation of the children to their parents, and vice 
versa, is understood more profoundly than anywhere in Europe 
to-day; the impulses of nature are cultivated correspondingly. 
Hence, even in the most cultivated there is a vital feeling for 
simplicity and primitiveness, and a vital understanding of the 
meaning of morality even among those who are decadent them- 
selves. I have never seen a Chinese for whom morality meant 
anything but cultivated nature. Nevertheless, no Mandarin is 
as good a Confucian as any peasant in the valley of the Yang- 
Tse, simply because Confucianism is originally only appro- 
priate to the horizon of the peasant. But as long as there are 
no castes in China, as long as the peasant remains the Chinese 
and does not alter his character as such, the characteristics will 
not die out, thanks to which the Chinese appears even to-day 
morally as the most cultured human being. 


CHAP. 44. ~ THE YANG-TSE 127 


As long as. . . . Will the peasant remain the same old in- 
dividual that he was after thic new revolution? And if not, 
what then? I look with profound melancholy upon the fields 
and the villages round about, upon the indefatigable country 
folk who follow their old habitual occupation along the banks 
of the Yang-Tse. Poverty such as seems typical of the 
Chinese peasant is, no doubt, an absolute evil—but how is it 
to be overcome without the instigation to individual egoism 
by which the moral foundation of the marvellous civilisation 
of China, the omnipotent family feeling, would be destroyed? 
There is little to be said for the dirt: but how is cleanliness to 
be introduced before prosperity has come? It is indeed hor- 
rible that so many men die year after year from hunger and 
pestilence: but where is the excess of population to go to if the 
self-regulation of nature is broken? A higher condition of 
equilibrium is certainly conceivable than the present one, but 
it will take centuries before it is brought about, and in the 
meantime the misery will become greater than it was before. 
What is the kernel of the social evil among us? That men 
know too much in order to be happy within the narrow limits in 
which they live, that they do not know enough to under- 
stand that this undesirable state of things can only become al- 
tered on a large scale in the passage of long periods of time, 
and that for this reason a violent attempt to get beyond such 
a state of affairs must inevitably lead to making it worse. In 
America it is undoubtedly desirable to let every one learn as 
much as he wants to, for there the opportunities for success 
are so many that every talented individual can hope to fight 
his way through. In more narrowly confined Europe this 
is possible only exceptionally, and it would therefore be better 
if the temptations were not made too great. In the overpopu- 
lated and correspondingly poor realm of China, with its rigid 
social order, that which is a misfortune for Europe will un- 
doubtedly assume the nature of a calamity. Thus, the tradi- 
tional happiness of the Chinese is at an end in all, even the 
most favourable, circumstances. 

The path of progress represents itself as an endless series of 
intimate tragedies. Happiness depends exclusively upon inner 


128 CHINA PART V 


circumstances, it cannot be adduced from the outside: to this 
extent progress seems purposeless, even harmful. A given 
unalterable condition produces in the long run, of its own 
accord, the inner outlqok thanks to which it becomes bearable; 
in changing circumstances man loses his inner equilibrium. 
The problem consists in acquiring an inner condition which 
could do justice to all external circumstances, that is to say, 
which would make him independent of them in practice, and 
that means a condition of the highest culture. Thus, whereas, 
under stationary conditions, every individual shares happiness 
potentially, only higher individuals do so in changing circum- 
stances. Here the masses are condemned to permanent un- 
happiness. Perhaps this is the intention of Providence in so 
far as it exists, for man develops undoubtedly more rapidly in 
adversity than in happiness; perhaps it is well that a period of 
necessarily increasing misery has fallen upon humanity. But 
it is tragic that it welcomes this period as one of greater happi- 
ness, for the inevitable disappointment will raise its dissatis- 
faction inordinately. 

The involuntary attitude of the well-intentioned man of 
culture towards this fate is one of wanting to stop it. For this 
reason all really cultured Chinese are reactionary. But they 
would be more wise if they fought against their sympathies. 
They ought, as far as possible, to anticipate the future con- 
dition of equilibrium and present this as an example to the 
masses, for only in this way will they be able to help them. 
The ideals of the olden days have abdicated; the past type of 
perfection can no longer be regarded as exemplary. It is the 
duty of the cultured, the aristocrats, in China, as everywhere 
else, not to immortalise a past perfection, but to fashion as 
soon as possible, from their better insight, the type which 
can paint the way to the humanity of to-morrow. 


+ 


THE captain tells me of the time when he sailed up and down 
the Yang-Tse as a young officer: in those days everything was 
different. How delightful it was then to negotiate with the 
Chinese merchants! They were true to their contracts and 


CHAP. 44 THE YANG-TSE 129 


never broke them, and generally a verbal agreement was sufhi- 
cient. They were as reliable and honest as any English firm. 
To-day one had to watch them ever so closely; they cheated 
wherever they could do so. This was the result of their con- 
tact with American business organisations. Well, perhaps it 
was not the Americans alone who had brought bad customs 
to the East; most Europeans had behaved there in a manner 
which would make them impossible at home. The more 
I see and experience, the more certain I am that where inner 
culture is not of the most unusual kind, that which is good is 
preserved only in so far as it is demonstrably useful. In all 
close communities it is most useful to be good, and for this 
reason nations as well as castes, guilds as well as criminals, 
wherever they are far-sighted enough, maintain a certain 
minimum of moral principles. And goodness proves itself 
proportionately more useful, the more active intercourse and 
the greater the turnover becomes, so that honesty is frequently 
absolute in very large business organisations. Thus, we 
modern Europeans, as long as we do business with one another, 
are presumably the most honest dealers who have ever lived. 
But that our morality is nothing primary, but purely the result 
of circumstances, is proved with horrifying clarity as soon as 
we transfer our activities beyond our own circle: there we 
behave like wild beasts. The cultured Chinese among them- 
selves refer to us as ‘pirates,’ and this description is certainly 
not too severe. Since I have stayed in the East, I can, un- 
fortunately, doubt no longer that our moral culture is purely 
external. 

Fortunately, goodness proves itself everywhere in the long 
run to be most useful, so that the white man will one day not 
be able to be anything but decent and honourable, even in the 
East. But it makes one feel ashamed to think that the majority 
among us have remained morally quite crude, in spite of 
Christianity, the ideal of humanity, and the most well-thought- 
out systems. If God suddenly destroyed the whole of our 
external machinery, we would appear as pure barbarians. A 
similarly threatening God would not need to strike terror into 
the Chinese: what they possess of morality (and that is more 


130 CHINA PART V 


than most of us possess), is conditioned inwardly, not externally. 
Of course, it is not independent of externals—if it were, the 
Chinese would be demigods; the culture of the individual 
would never have gone so far without the compulsion of the 
closest living together under difficult circumstances; if the 
merchants are less honest than in former days, they are also 
taking the external circumstances into account. But their 
feeling for morality represents a primary factor in their souls, 
not a secondary one, as in our case. Therefore they appear, 
seen from God’s point of view, morally superior to us, even 
where their actions are more immoral. During my stay in 
China I often thought of the thesis of Paul Dubois, that an 
uncertain feeling for the difference between good and evil is 
a sign of stupidity; it was a question of purely objective cir- 
cumstances, which one either recognised or not, concerning 
which there could not be two equally valid opinions, just as 
little as over the problem as to whether twice two makes four 
or five. No Chinese seems as ‘stupid’ (or, more correctly, 
‘uncultured’) in this direction, as most European men (women 
are much more cultured); the Chinese, no matter how dubious 
his action—action depends upon character—probably always 
knows what is right. He knows it, however, because this 
side of his soul stands on a high level of culture, thanks to 
Confucianism. Is it not about time that we too educated our 
children in this Confucian manner? Sooner or later this will 
undoubtedly happen; it is to be hoped that it does not happen 
too late. Our self-sufficient men of ethics and morals ought to 
be compelled to have intercourse with cultured Chinese for 
at least a year (just as I recommended all those interested in 
religion to spend a year in Benares): those whose souls are not 
completely blind would recognise in surprise that these gentle- 
men, no matter how ‘immoral’ they may be according to Euro- 
pean ideas, no matter how histrionic they are, no matter how 
much they dissemble, how much they lie, how unabashedly 
they visit brothels, and no matter how unimposing their char- 
acter is as a rule, stand on an incomparably higher level of 
moral culture than most of the men of our race. The mere 
concept of moral culture is strange to the average European. 


CHAP. 44 — THE YANG-TSE 131 


He imagines that, with the quality of ‘character,’ everything 
is said and done. But what does character mean? It means 
the solidity of a given psychic organism. But this is purely a 
question of physiology and has nothing to do with morality. 
Just as it is exquisite when a morally cultured individual 
evinces firmness, it is horrible if a coarse one does the same. 
By breeding for character we have given a more durable raw 
material of soul to the world than the whole East can show. 
But more than this has not been achieved up to to-day. The 
time has come to begin to elaborate it. 

I wish the missions would be forbidden on the part of gov- 
ernments. Their single members are often altogether vener- 
able, but in moral culture they stand, almost without exception, 
too far below those whom they come to ‘convert’ not to do 
much more harm than good. One should not send hobblede- 
hoys as teachers to cultured people, even if they are better 
men. 


+ 


A STORM is raging on the Yang-Tse. When I lie there 
with my eyes shut and listen to the voices of the water and the 
air, I cannot help fancying that I am on the ocean. And when 
I look up I am disappointed by the spectacle of dirty furrowed 
water. It is better to keep one’s eyes shut. As I open them 
again after a while, my consciousness being entirely enthralled 
by the sounds round about, it seems to me as if everything had 
changed: I perceive huge waves beneath me, a raging sea; only 
I float so high above them that they appear quite small. 

It is an old and favourite game of mine to imagine small 
things great and great things small; a game which provides 
much amusement. To see cafions in sand-purls and the sea in 
puddles—this requires no exertion of the imagination, and 
the inner enrichment which one experiences in the process is 
great. One may thus witness catastrophes of nature without 
ever having left one’s native soil. . . . And yet no amount of 
imagination helps us beyond our essential limitation. What 
difference is there as such between a puddle and the ocean? 
Only that of absolute size. Both are facts in the same sense; 


132 CHINA PART V 


the ocean is not richer in problems; every atom is a solar sys- 
tem and can be imagined as such without further ado. And yet, 
only that which is great in relation to us calls forth great feel- 
ings in us. This shows how lamentably dependent we are on 
external stimulus. A powerful shock raises even the philistine 
high above himself; on the other hand, a genius can only fulfil 
his destiny absolutely in the midst of favourable surroundings. 
One ought to get so far as to become entirely independent of 
the accident of one’s external surroundings; that is to say, one 
ought to have such complete mastery over one’s inner sur- 
roundings—one’s given psycho-physical organism—that, by 
changing it at will, as the chameleon changes his colour, one 
would attain with certainty what is otherwise only more or less 
attainable by the shrewd consideration of external influences. 


45 
SHANGHAI 


N°” I have seen Shen Chi-P’si, the scholar of whom I have 
heard so much. The expectations with which I looked 
forward to his acquaintance were great. Almost every time 
when in Pekin the conversation turned upon European con- 
ditions and I had cause to rectify the views of my Chinese 
friends, they looked at each other meaningly and exclaimed: 
‘Shen Chi-P’si told us that too; only we did not wish to believe 
him, because, no matter how learned he may be, he has only 
occupied himself superficially with Western civilisation.’ 
What kind of a man must he be who understood most things 
without knowing them! His appearance, the personal con- 
tact with him, did not bring me any disappointment. Shen 
Chi-P’si is the greatest fulfilment of Chinese possibility which 
I have seen; he is actually a ‘Noble One,’ as Kong Fu-Tse has 
delineated him. He is an old man with the fire of a youth; 
venerable and earnest, as is proper for a sage, and at the same 
time as graceful in his demeanour as a girl; he is perfect 
in form and simultaneously all profundity and significance. 
Shen represents, in an astonishingly high degree, the ideal of 


CHAP. 45 - SHANGHAI 133 


concretion which is the chief characteristic of Chinese culture. 
In him all personal profundity has become typical form and 
surface; he makes no gesture which is not in accordance with 
the Book of Rites, nor does he betray one which did not give 
adequate expression just to him and only to him. His con- 
versation is singularly instructive. I have never met such 
profound understanding among Chinese for non-Chinese 
questions, not to mention Chinese ones. And yet Shen is one 
of the most extremely orthodox Confucians whom I have 
known; he is hostile to innovations, reactionary, a scholar of 
the old school who regards alien literature as hardly worth 
knowing. He has penetrated so profoundly into himself that 
everything human isa matter of course to him, while the fewest 
of external considerations suffice for him in order to anticipate 
every human significance. I realise once more that every mani- 
festation, even the most limited, is a possible expression of the 
infinite. 

I am thankful for having seen this image of human perfec- 
tion with my very own eyes. For a long time I intended to 
write a general summary of the nature of the Chinese, but I 
always waited in case I should encounter some fact which 
would demand the enlargement of its scope. I will not meet 
a richer nature, a more perfect culture in China than is em- 
bodied in Shen. Therefore, I may to-day, with the concrete 
vision before my eyes, proceed to the execution of my inten- 
tion with a good conscience. I must summarise and illuminate 
from one single source what I have noticed and written down 
independently during my stay in China. 

Let it be well understood that I am to-day concerned with 
the definition of the general characteristics of the Chinese, not 
with their concrete and specialised embodiments; I am con- 
cerned solely with that which, on the one hand, can be described 
in abstracto, and has, on the other, symbolical significance for 
the whole of mankind. The concrete Chinese substance is an 
absolutum, which can neither be deduced nor delineated as an 
example; this essential substance remains outside the limit of 
my observations. Only this much I will put down while the 
impression of Shen Chi-P’si is fresh in my mind: the Chinese 


134 CHL INS PART V_ 


substance is something very great, a life-force which, in power 
if not in richness, can hardly be excelled. 


aia 


THE Chinese is unquestionably less individualised than the 
European; a man like Shen is much nearer to a coolie than an 
intellectual is to an agricultural labourer among us; this strikes 
one all the more as the differences between the classes in China 
are very much greater than in our case, which counteracts the 
relation described above. Even the greatest Chinaman is not 
personality in Goethe’s sense. Thus, certain definite limits 
which cannot be exceeded are laid down for him: everything 
which presupposes a differentiated consciousness of uniqueness 
or singularity is beyond his power: thus, individual character- 
isation, individualised love, especially that infinite and yet 
purely personal love which Christ is supposed to feel for every 
soul; Chinese charity represents, where it exists, no personal 
relation to the individual, but rather, like Stoic humanity, an 
abstract one in relation to generality. For this reason the 
Chinese lacks the personally creative quality which neces- 
sarily presupposes the consciousness of uniqueness; for this 
very reason he is an intellectual! Intellectualism is produced 
everywhere as the subjective reflection of objective uniformity; 
where a non-individualised type of men (which nota bene is 
never the earliest !—primitive people are much more individual- 
ised than the Chinese) is gifted with considerable intelligence, 
it professes without exception the ideal of uniformity, of sys- 
tematisation; it postulates unlimited possibilities for generalisa- 
tion, for nothing is so natural to intellect as generalising. 
Where the facts thoroughly justify this process—the more 
non-individualised a people, the more do general and abstract 
considerations do justice to the individual—the original inclina- 
tion is strengthened in the course of time. ‘Thus, a further 
barrier is set to the possibilities of mental life. The Chinese 
as an intellectual has no conscious relation to metaphysical 
reality; he remains, so far as he thinks, on the surface of 
things. 

It is most significant that the Chinese, in spite of these bar- 


CHAP. 45 ~ SHANGHAI 135 


riers, is our equal in all essential mental directions; the recog- 
nition and expression of essential Being do not presuppose a 
condition of individualisation. As a mystic he is the equal of 
the greatest Europeans and Indians, for mystic recognition im- 
plies realising the fundamental principle of life which is the 
same everywhere. The Chinese possesses a direct relation to 
absolute goodness and beauty because the realisation of the 
absolute ideal is exclusively the function of perfection and in- 
dependent of the nature of its elements. Wherever essentials 
are in question, there is no trace of narrowness in him. This 
is so, because Being lies at a greater depth than individual- 
ity. This truth China has demonstrated for all time. 

In so far as the Chinese is not very individualised, one may 
say that he is on a lower level of nature than we are. No mat- 
ter how little I like the dogma of evolution: a man as a mental 
being does develop in the sense of progressive differentiation, 
and in this way we have got further than the Chinese. But 
equally certainly, we have gone less far than they have in cul- 
ture, for this depends upon the degree to which a given natural 
condition has been developed. In cultural accomplishment 
the Chinese is the most advanced man; the whole of his 
natural disposition is transfused with spirit, and its expression 
seems perfect everywhere. Thus the example of China proves 
something more: that culture belongs to a different dimension 
from progress. It proves yet another thing: that ultimately 
everything depends upon education in its widest sense, because 
on and in spite of his low natural level, the Chinese has ap- 
proached more nearly than we have done hitherto to the real- 
isation of the ideal of humanity. 

Accordingly, the nature of the Chinese represents, on the one 
hand, a rest from past stages of development, and, on the other, 
an anticipation of the ideal of the future. For me there can be 
no doubt that the most highly developed individuals of future 
times will be nearer to the traditional Confucian than to the 
modern man, that the social order of the future will be more 
akin to that of the Chinese than what is hoped for by our 
Utopians. The man of the future will surely be autonomous; 
there will not be many external barriers, and the existing ones 


136 CHINA PART V 


will be condemned as pis-aller, as has been the case in China 
for thousands of years. But men will of their own accord, 
from their own higher insight, mark their own limitations; 
they will think superindividually, not individually. This stage 
of perfected superindividual thought will, however, be more 
closely akin to the subindividual thought of China than to our 
modern thinking. 

The traditional Chinese type, accordingly, has much the 
same relation to the highest conceivable condition of humanity 
as the mythically expressed wisdom of the ancients has to its 
scientific confirmation in a more precise form. To go beyond 
the Rishis in significance is hardly possible; but the same recog- 
nition can be better expressed. Just so Chinese culture will 
never be excelled in significance. As far as expression is con- 
cerned, its insufficiency is connected, in all principal points, 
with their intellectualism. The ideal of concretion, in itself an 
absolute one for this world, becomes realised in China, not in 
the perfection of incomparable unique souls, but in the perfect 
presentation of a norm, with the result that the profoundest 
elements in men remain untouched. The highest aim would 
be to realise the ideal of concretion by means of the pure sub- 
jective self. The profoundest layer in man is pure subjectiv- 
ity, which cannot be made objective nor taken hold of from the 
outside; it is our problem to live directly in it and by it. The 
Chinese does this indirectly through self-surrender to objec- 
tive wisdom. Such wisdom, no matter how profound and 
embracing it may be, does not do justice to particular phenom- 
ena, it is only cognisant of types; it must externalise, since it 
does not take the individual soul as a starting-point, but the 
abstract relations which exist between many; it must level, 
because it only considers generalities; and the harmony which 
it creates eventually lives at the expense of possible wealth. 
If one day we succeed, by means of the free initiative of per- 
fectly developed individualities who strive with singleness of 
purpose after their personal perfection, in creating a harmony 
as complete as that which exists in China, then the social ideal 
will have been realised. 

One word more in connection with our greater originality 


CHAP. 45 SHANGHAI 137 


compared with the people of the East. It does not imply an 
unqualified advantage, for it is compensated by a correspond- 
ingly poorer memory. East and West embody, at the moment, 
the opposite poles of life, that of innovation and that of mem- 
ory. The stereotyped quality of nature is nothing but memory, 
her new creations mean nothing else than inventions, and both 
together seem indispensable for the continuation of the world. 
Actually, however, new formations and tenacity to existing 
forms are mutually exclusive. Almost every creative spirit has 
complained of a bad memory, most people with a good one have 
few ideas. The power of memory of people in the East is 
overwhelming; it might almost be defined as the incapacity 
to forget. No less enormous is the durability of the forms 
of life there, and their physical vitality. Cultural formations 
degenerate in the East as slowly as those of nature do in the 
whole world. We degenerate as soon as we do not progress. 
This is due to the fact that we have bad memories. The con- 
tinuation of our existence seems possible only in so far as we 
continue to invent. Will we be able to continue invention for 
ever? Or will we one day swing across to the opposite pole of 
life? Or will we disappear altogether from this planet after a 
brief and hasty course? No one can tell. 


a 


To-mMoRROW I leave the Middle Kingdom; what do I take 
away with me? More instruction than I shall be able to utilise 
in the course of years. And yet I feel unsatisfied: no matter 
_ how much China has given me, it has not changed me; I pass 
from it almost exactly as I came. Contrary to my own tempera- 
ment, I have been an observer here from the beginning to the 
end; no matter how much I have been absorbed in the Chinese, 
the period of being different seems to have meant remarkably 
little to me. How strange: China has impressed me more than 
any other country; it has taught me an immeasurable amount; 
I have, moreover, developed a real affection for it. And yet I 
pass from it with a slight feeling of resentment. 

When I reflect on this feeling I discover its cause soon 
enough. I have gained less from China than from other coun- 


138 CHINA PART V 


tries, objectively less interesting, in the same sense as Agra 
meant little to me in comparison with the wilderness of the 
Himalayas, and just as all art in general has always meant 
little to me compared with nature. In regarding the art of 
men, with the exception of the greatest, I never get beyond 
my original possibilities; I learn, perhaps, to speak new lan- 
guages, to express myself better in the ones that I know, I 
become conscious of sides in myself which I would otherwise 
have overlooked, but I remain confined in my humanity with 
its narrow Roundarics: This typical misfortune has overtaken 
me in China to an unusual degree, because the Chinese, of all 
people, are—the most human; they have gone further than 
any others in the differentiation of their peculiarity. And al- 
though they have expressed, in a degree hitherto unattained, in 
the particular what is generally human, and in the human that 
which is more than human, the very exhaustive nature of the 
expression brings it about that the resultant picture represents 
something all too human. To carry moral culture so far that 
the outer order appears as the necessary result of free wills in- 
terfering with each other is no doubt a supreme achievement, 
but simultaneously it is all too human, for only men perfect 
themselves in the social community. To stylise emotional life 
to such a degree that objective ritual appears as the adequate 
expression of subjective impulses—that is equally a supreme 
achievement, but it is also equally all too human: for urbanity 
is only in question for men. The Chinese possesses, as the most 
deeply rooted being, the most universal background, but what 
is universal has been squeezed in his case into what is purely 
human, with the result that the human quality appears en- 
hanced to an incredible degree. I too am, until further notice, 
a human being; and if I tarry in the atmosphere of heightened 
humanity, then my limitedness also becomes increased. I am in 
danger of becoming crystallised in my peculiarity, and that is 
what I fear. 

If only Chinese civilisation were difficult to understand as a 
phenomenon, which can be said in a high degree of the Indian 
civilisation, then it would nevertheless possess stimulating 
powers. Ants must seem uninteresting to other ants because 


CHAP. 45 | SHANGHAI 139 


every one of them exhausts the nature of ants as completely 
as a statue of Phidias exhausts the possibilities of Greek phy- 
sique, so that none offers something new to another, but their 
contemplation helps.me nevertheless, because entering with 
my feelings into their ‘all-too-ant-like’ nature at any rate draws 
me away from the ‘all-too-human’ quality. In relation to the 
Chinese I am as one ant to another; of all nations they are the 
most immediately intelligible. The matter-of-factness of their 
fundamental temperament, the predominance of common sense 
over the imagination, their delight in the obvious, their cult of 
the classical ideal, result in the fact that none of their mani- 
festations, no matter how intricate it may appear at a distance, 
offers the least difficulty to the intelligence of any one who 
examines it minutely. There is no Chinese ideal which could 
not serve as an example for every one, there is no chinoiserie 
to which every one could not do justice. Thus there is noth- 
ing in the atmosphere of Chinese culture which stimulates the 
mind as such: it confirms one, on the contrary, in the routine of 
humanity. 

It is true that Chinese nature is grand; on the few occasions 
on which its spirit got hold of me, I advanced inwardly tre- 
mendously. But in China, men have placed nature in the back- 
ground as nowhere else; here, culture rules supreme. In 
Europe this is not the case half so much, in spite of the greater 
efficacy of our cultural methods, because there man, in order 
to control nature, has entered into its own meaning and there- 
fore enhanced its manifestations; in China, one sees the most 
intense human culture impressed as it were upon an inert soil. 
For this reason the contemplation of Chinese nature helps one 
only exceptionally beyond the human realm. How tragic that 
the highest manifestation in itself no longer stimulates the 
mind, but blunts it! One no longer feels the perfectly ex- 
pressed primordial force; where all possibilities have been ex- 
hausted, nothing remains for the mind to wish for. The ‘Rus- 
sian man’ appears to the Western European of to-day as the 
most primordial of all; that is because he is the most unaccom- 
plished of all talented people, the most opposed to the Chinese. 
He is intrinsically no more primordial than the latter. If I 


140 CHINA PART V 


have learnt anything in China, it is that perfection does not lead 
to diminished spontaneity (no matter how often it does so); 
the civilised individual does not need to be less vital than the 
barbarian. The appearance of the essential lifelessness of ex- 
pressed forms is purely due to the fact that they do not stimu- 
late the observer. Plants and animals are not denied original- 
ity by any man, and they are more perfect in their sphere than 
any man has ever been because they do stimulate him; in order 
to understand them, he must himself create the transition from 
appearance to significance, and for this reason that which 
strikes him as rigid and lifeless among his peers seems to ani- 
mate him here. But this recognition alters nothing in the fact 
that the perception of accomplishment does not induce con- 
tinued creation in the mind. For this reason, the product of 
culture is less significant for us than that of nature; for the 
same reason I part with less benefit from the most civilised 
humanity which exists than I parted from the primeval forests 
of Ceylon. 

The contemplation of Chinese civilisation throws much light 
upon the relation of nature and spirit. I wrote it down already 
in the Himalayas: creation expresses its principle without being 
the principle itself. The appearances of culture are, as such, 
no nearer to their spiritual cause than those of nature; they too 
are ‘nature,’ not ‘spirit’; here, too, as soon as manifestation has 
become perfect, it is all over with spontaneity. From the meta- 
physical point of view there is no difference between dead 
institutions and the array of the stars. In the routine of judi- 
cial proceedings no more living spirit is manifested than in the 
circulation of heavenly bodies. Thus also, Chinese civilisation 
in its present typical shape is ‘nature,’ not ‘spirit’; it is no form 
of freedom. 

All freedom is fulfilled in limitation. For the moment, 
however, I am satiated with fulfilment; I long for the ecstasy 
of innovation: most of all I long to be away from that which is 
all too human. I almost wish I already had Japan behind me, 
and were sailing for the South Seas, where there are said to be 
such strange and weird-looking fishes. 


PART STAM IARAN 





46 
THROUGH YAMATO 


I BEGIN my stay in Japan with a walking tour through Ya- 
mato, that province with which the oldest and holiest tradi- 
tions of the country are associated. It is the time for the pil- 
grimages to the Buddhistic sanctuaries. All the streets and 
forests are teeming with life; half Japan seems to be on holi- 
day excursions. I share, as far as possible, the life of my fel- 
low-travellers, I try to think and to feel with them and to per- 
ceive with their senses. 

The nature of Japan is probably unrivalled in delicacy and 
wealth. There are a surprising number of different conifers, 
the leaf-bearing trees are marvellously manifold, and no artist 
could have contrasted the colour and form perceived at various 
levels more artistically. Small wonder that the Japanese are 
endowed with much feeling for natural form! Just as the 
man whom a happy fate has brought up in the midst of art 
treasures which he was allowed to regard, not as some strange 
magnificence, but as his natural surroundings, possesses, even if 
only mediocrely gifted, such taste and an eye for art by nature 
as an artistically much more gifted child of barbaric countries 
can acquire only exceptionally—it is in the same sense that a 
richly differentiated nature is beneficial in effect. In latitudes 
where the contrasts of light and colour are so great that their 
delicate shades remain unnoticed, the nation with the greatest 
visual gifts does not achieve as much in landscape painting as in 
districts possessing more favourable conditions of light refrac- 
tion; it is not for nothing that the landscape painting of the 
West flourished and accomplished most in Holland, and not in 
Italy. Now as to Japan, it simply compels the eye to perceive 
just those relations of colour and form which characterise 
Japanese art. A specific scale of values is revealed there as a 
fact of nature. And once it has been perceived and understood, 
then an artistic mind continues to create in accordance with it 
involuntarily. This process, this continuing to compose in the 
spirit and meaning of nature, has been practised by the artists 

143 


144 JAPAN PART VI 


of the Far East from early days with an understanding never 
evinced by us. It is as if nature’s own struggle for beauty had 
become conscious in them, as if man was the special organ by 
means of which Nature attained her final perfection; here man 
seems, as it were, responsible for the extremest harmony. 
Whence this marvellous ability? The explanation is to be 
found in the method of visual training. Chinese and Japanese 
painters are Yogis; they do not regard nature from the outside, 
but they become absorbed in it as the mystics become absorbed 
in God. In this process they get beyond their humanity and 
become one with the spirit of nature. For man is not only 
man, he is simultaneously, in various parts of his being, ani- 
mal, plant, rock and sea; only he rarely becomes conscious 
of the fact and only knows how to feel as a human being. If, 
however, he learns to be at one with what apparently lives as 
something strange outside him, then he can bring it forth out 
of himself. Thus, there really dwells, in Far Eastern land- 
scape pictures, the life of the landscape; thus the Japanese 
succeed almost playfully in utilising nature artistically and yet 
as nature. The incredible perfection of Japanese flower deco- 
rations is due to the fact that the very spirit of the flowers ar- 
ranges the nosegay into a nosegay; professionally cultivated 
forests are not ugly in Japan, as in Germany, because here 
men, instead of imposing their intention upon the trees, assist 
them in doing what they would like to do themselves. The 
natural rotation of the plants is taken into consideration, never 
forgetting the special conditions of the soil. And if an over- 
grown tree on a slope forms a beautiful silhouette, well, they 
let it stand there, even if, from a forestry point of view, it 
ought to be cut down. 

Of course, to travel so far in the understanding of nature, 
one must be a Japanese. I do not believe that a gardener of 
any other people would know how to dwarf trees in the Japa- 
nese sense, without any violation of nature: as far as I can see, 
there is no teachable method for it, it depends entirely upon 
an inner understanding. Every morning the ‘tree-trainer’ 
looks at his little plants carefully, and then takes away—a 
leaf or a shoot! Why just this one? He could not tell you 


CHAP. 46 © YAMATO 145 


himself; but he knows that just this organ must be extirpated 
in order that the inner impulse for growth does not lead beyond 
the prescribed dimension, and his success justifies him almost 
every time. Such powers of intuition can probably not be 
explained; one has to let them pass as miraculous. But it seems 
certain to me, anyhow, that the marvellously different shades 
in Japanese nature, the alteration in living manifestations which 
is brought about in Japan by the slightest change in the soil, 
is an important consideration in the development of existing 
talent. I too am beginning to observe, as I have never ob- 
served before; it seems to meas if I had been blind until a few 
days ago. And I enjoy the wondrous gift of vision so intensely 
that I cannot watch the otherwise so welcome twilight without 
regret. 


> 


I aM now tramping through distant valleys which are hardly 
ever visited by white men. To the villagers I am the object of 
unending amusement. ‘They are as friendly and obliging as 
they possibly can be, only they laugh, wherever I turn, because 
of what seems to them my superhuman stature. This morning, 
as I was climbing up a steep mountain path, I suddenly felt 
myself pushed from behind; when I turned round, two exceed- 
ingly pretty girls laughed and ran away: they had wanted to 
find out how heavy I was. There is something marvellous 
about the nature of backwoodsmen. I know it well from my 
home. Every time I visit my out-of-the-way forest estates, I 
find a new opportunity for reverential surprise at the impor- 
tance of the most everyday events within small circles, and I 
notice how enormously a narrow perspective enhances the 
significance of what is not a portion of the daily round. My 
keeper hardly regards the itinerant workmen from the islands, 
who speak a different Esthonian dialect from his own, as 
human beings; they are strangers to him. He reports to me: 
‘Lately a certain Michael lived here—no one knows exactly 
where he comes from—his manner is queer—something seems 
to be wrong with him.? This Michael then proves to be the 
most trivial of all average creatures, but he stands out against 


146 JAPAN PART VI 


the everyday background of the backwoodsman as a figure as 
big, as plastic, as gigantic as a hero of Homer. And how per- 
fect these backwoodsmen are! Among the lower classes of 
our time, form and content amalgamate into unity perhaps 
only in them. In order to be perfect in ample circumstances, 
one must have many generations behind one which have en- 
larged one’s horizon and one’s natural sphere of activity; it 
does not happen all at once from to-day to to-morrow. Thus, 
in the rapidly moving modern world in which the peasant’s 
son often ends as a rich citizen, only what is eccentric appears 
interesting; it is not for nothing that the writers of our day 
have a predilection for criminals, psycho-pathological individ- 
uals and swindlers. This implies, of course, 4 faute de mieux, 
that concentric perfection is the higher value. Eccentricity is 
essentially exclusive, concentricity essentially inclusive, and for 
this reason the concentric man is, in all circumstances, the 
richer, profounder and more substantial; he alone can express 
flawlessly the deepest being in his own appearance. Among 
backwoodsmen every one preserves his peculiarity and it is 
readily recognised in every one; in the wide amorphous mass 
each and all want to be alike. Their essential formlessness 
conditions a more slavish adherence to convention. The sum 
of all the figures has, as it were, to produce the form which no 
single figure possesses in itself. 

The nature of the Japanese backwoodsman is more sympa- 
thetic to me than that of any other which I have ever seen. It 
possesses all the sweetness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, all 
the charm and good-heartedness which have made the lower 
classes of these latitudes seem so lovable to me since I have 
read Lafcadio Hearn. ‘These poor people here are lovable. 
Their politeness undoubtedly comes from the heart; I have 
noticed no greed or the wish to take unfair advantage of one. 
Perhaps they show me their best side because, following the 
suggestion of my companion, a young poet from Kyoto, I treat 
them as at home, as a feudal lord, I treat my patriarchaliy 
minded peasantry. In the out-of-the-way valleys of Yamato 
the Middle Ages are not yet past; there the era of Meiji has 
hardly begun; there the peasants still expect superiority, mag- 


CHAP. 46 YAMATO 147 


nanimity, distance, from their lord, they expect that conscious- 
ness of absolute superiority which, for this very reason, allows 
extreme familiarity. There they still want to look up. How 
gladly I reverted to a part which our world offers less and less 
opportunity for playing! And the practical result was that 
people were found everywhere who rendered me services and 
showed attention without wishing to accept payment for it. 


+ 


I am halting in a prosperous village close to a foaming river 
full of trout. Where in the world is the child of the people 
anything like as cultured as in Japan? Whatever he does dis- 
plays culture; he permits nothing unclean or ugly; the most 
exquisite consideration controls the behaviour of every one to 
each other. And especially as far as the children are concerned, 
I have never seen such delightful ones anywhere. They hardly 
ever appear to be unruly, which is apparently due to the fact 
that they are treated with complete understanding, and are yet 
never spoilt: even the tiniest have consideration impressed upon 
them. There is incredibly little selfishness here; every one 
seems to live joyfully for others, contributing his portion so 
that the whole shall become as harmonious as possible. 

In idea it is the same in China. When Confucianism came 
to Japan, its inhabitants accepted it as the transfigured and © 
deepened expression of that which had always been habitual 
to them, and the perfect expression of its own led to deeper 
understanding and the consolidation of traditional customs. 
None the less: what a difference compared with the Middle 
Kingdom! Confucianism is cautious peasant wisdom, the 
Japanese culture of consideration seems to me to be something 
instinctive, I would almost like to say an animal impulse. The 
Japanese are cleanly as cats are cleanly, they are polite in the 
same way in which penguins are polite, they are considerate 
of each other with the same matter-of-courseness with which 
mothers love their children; thus, their expression is of a piece 
with the perfection of animals. The Japanese have nothing of 
Chinese profundity and gravity. They seem to me to be super- 
ficial, poor in imagination, matter of fact to an almost inhuman 


148 JAPAN PART VI 


degree; simultaneously, they are extraordinarily susceptible, 
possessing sensitivity in the widest sense as no Chinese does. 
Their whole sphere of sensation seems to be ‘pervious’ in 
the same sense as only compassion is among us. That which is 
based upon metaphysical realisation with the Chinese rests upon 
physiological sensitiveness with them. 

I am reminded of Sontoku Ninomiya, that peasant sage who 
did so much for his countrymen in the first half of the nine- 
teenth century, the description of whose life and whose doc- 
trines has since then been distributed among the people as a 
gospel by the Government." I must think of this simple coun- 
tryman, who embarked upon a life of complete unselfishness 
as soon as he had worked his way up from direst poverty, 
and did not cease to toil endlessly and exclusively up to the 
hour of his death for the improvement of the conditions of 
others: according to the letter, he was a genuine Confucian, nor 
did he consider himself to be anything else. In reality he was 
absolutely unique, a man who in the whole of Asia was con- 
ceivable only on Japanese soil. He lacked the wide horizon of 
the Chinese sages, he lacked their omniscience and their uni- 
versal outlook; regarded philosophically, he was superficial. 
But, thanks to his capacity for sympathy and the energy which 
he had at his disposal, he achieved more in practice, even if on 
a small scale. Sontoku was, at bottom, a Christian; his prob- 
lems were those of the Christian love of one’s neighbour. Can 
this be the main cause of the fact that the Japanese have West- 
ernised themselves so quickly and successfully? We too are 
less thoughtful and profound than the Chinese and the In- 
dians; we are merely more energetic and more sensitive. Prob- 
ably, what we call Christian love is determined much more 
physiologically than theologically. 


> 


THE Japanese are, no doubt, closely related to us in many 
ways; now that I have turned my attention to the matter, it 


1The title of this book is Hotokuki; it has been translated into English by 
Todasu Yoshimoto and published by Longmans, Green & Co. under the title 
A Peasant Sage of Japan. 


CHAP. 47 KOYA-SAN 149 


strikes me more and more. The energy of the Japanese, too, is 
kinetic, and his consciousness is turned towards the outside, 
but above all he is equally curious and keen on innovation as 
we are. Regarded metaphysically, is it not perhaps accidental 
that his culture is nevertheless an expression of the Chinese 
spirit? I have endeavoured, during these days which I have 
spent uninterruptedly in the company of pilgrims, to enter 
into the soul of the Japanese, and the little which I have recog- 
nised so far hardly permits me to doubt any longer that this 
people would have become quite different under different 
influences. I am all the more grateful for the fact that history 
did not take another course, but just the one it did: the Jap- 
anese people owes its singular charm undoubtedly to the 
Chinese schooling; all the manifestations which delight me 
are familiar to me in idea from China. And so I ask myself 
how we Northern barbarians would have developed if we had 
been subjected to Chinese influences instead of to Greco-Ro- 
man ones: would we perhaps have got further than we have 
done? Presumably we would, even then, be ‘Christians’ under 
one name or another; we would be as energetic, inventive and 
active as we are; zsthetically and morally, we would surely be 
much more cultured. We would be less advanced in techni- 
calities, and there would not be industrial towns upon earth 
even to-morrow. But would this have involved any intrinsic 
disadvantage, if the Germanic races had drawn their cultural 
treasures, not from Rome, but from Loyang? I do not know. 
It is difficult for me to judge without bias, because I notice in 
Europeans mainly what they lack, and in the Asiatics what 
speaks in their favour. 


47 
IN THE MONASTERY OF KOYA-SAN 


I AM ending my wanderings through Yamato with a pilgrim- 
age to the mountain Koya-San, whose summit is crowned 
with the most famous monastery of Japan. It lies in the shade 
of conifers hundreds of years old. I never saw a more holy 


150 JAPAN PART VI 


grove. Of all the trees which I know, the cryptomeria calls 
to life religious associations most compellingly and powerfully. 
This tree has the duskiness of the cypress yew-tree, it sym- 
bolises joyful hope like the Thuga; at the same time it has the 
majesty, the cosmic power and immortal quality of the fir-tree. 

The monastery is a typically Japanese building. It consists 
of low houses built of wood, with beautifully curved roofs, and 
is surrounded by attractive gardens; I expected the same atmos- 
phere of delicacy and charm as elsewhere when I beheld 
something similar in Japan. Instead of this, there is an air 
about the place which I am familiar with from Europe, but 
which, in spite of everything I have learned since, I did not 
expect to breathe in Japan; it is the atmosphere of Christian 
medizval monasticism. There is something commanding, 
even warlike, powerful, violent, in this air, in spite of the 
gentle charm of all its individual manifestations. I can imag- 
ine the monks here just as well fighting as praying; the abbot 
I can picture best as a prince of the Church in the medieval 
sense. And this isa Buddhistic place of pilgrimage! How far 
away are those hot regions, where gentle, dark-coloured men 
and women bring their floral offerings to the Buddhas who 
squat placidly on their thrones! The spirit which dominates 
Koya is not a spirit of sufferance and non-volition, not the spirit 
of longing to be out of the turmoil of the world; it is abso- 
lutely alien to the spirit of India. It is essentially one with the 
spirit which animated our ancestors, from the days of the Caro- 
lingians to the end of the Middle Ages. 

I try to visualise what I know of the history of Japanese 
Buddhism. In the frontier districts between India and Central 
Asia, the land of Gandhara, a wonderful religion came to be 
developed in the course of the first centuries after Christ. 
According to the letter, it was the religion of Buddhism, ac- 
cording to the spirit, a variety of the Bhakti, the emotionalistic 
form of expression of Brahmanism, in which the divinity bears 
a personal character and in which faith and love pass as the 
cardinal virtues; but according to its dogmatic concepts, it 
was something completely new for India: a religion of salva- 
tion in the Christian sense. At that time a longing for salva- 


CHAP.47 KOYA-SAN 151 


tion filled the whole world. All over the surface of the earth 
communities sprang up whose centre was a past, present or 
future Messiah, the air was pregnant with the expectation of 
revelation, and the spirit of the age seemed uniform, from 
Alexandria to the Far East, to a degree such as has never been 
the case since. Indian teachings had found their way to Egypt 
and vice versa, doctrines from Syria and Asia Minor, among 
these Christianity in its many varieties, had penetrated with the 
merchants as far as China, the Greek sphere of ideas had taken 
firm root in the valley of Kabul, together with the Greco- 
Parthian princes, with the result that all local religions were 
either transformed or at any rate fructified by the universal 
spirit of that epoch. In this way, Christianity, originally an 
unimportant and limited belief of an obscure sect, was devel- 
oped in the West into a grand, all-embracing world religion; 
the same thing happened with Buddhism in Gandhara. 
Gautama, the man, became transformed into a god, who had 
assumed human shape for the salvation of the whole of crea- 
tion; the specifically Indian doctrine of salvation by recognition 
gave way more and more to the specifically Catholic doctrine 
of salvation by faith. Buddhism was eventually changed from 
a philosophical conception of the world, which knew of neither 
God nor soul, into a Church which differed from the Christian 
in nothing fundamental. 

It will probably never be decided which influences played 
the chief part in this transformation; but it may safely be sup- 
posed that all influences which were in question at all contrib- 
uted to this result, in view of the great plasticity of Maha- 
yana, the general Oriental tendency not to take manifestations 
seriously metaphysically, and the specifically Indian inclination 
to stress the common factor of various elements. Among 
others, Christianity, which began just at that time to develop 
into a great spiritual power in its Gnostic, Ophitic and Nestorian 
varieties in Central Asia, played its part. Still, Mahayana re- 
mained purely Indian in its nature for a long time; India’s 
superior spirit gave life to the body of its mental images, no 
matter whence they may have been derived. Even in China, 
the new Buddhism remained essentially Indian. But when it 


152 JAPAN PART VI 


reached Japan it changed fundamentally very soon: it was sub- 
stantially influenced (what had hardly happened in China) 
by the practical spirit of Confucianism, which had penetrated to 
Japan a little earlier, and it was soon wedded and partially 
intermingled with the local worship of gods and ancestors. It 
was a religion of soldiers. Buddhism in Japan adapted itself 
more and more to the knightly spirit. This explains why it is 
here so reminiscent of the spirit of our Middle Ages. 

Japanese Buddhism is indeed fundamentally different from 
the Buddhism which Gautama, the ascetic, had founded once 
upon a time. But the man who would say thereupon that it is 
not Buddhism at all but Christianity, could be told with 
justice by a Japanese that our Christianity, too, cannot be 
regarded really as Christianity. The idea of a saviour, which 
is common to-day to both religions, was the property of neither 
originally: it is only St. Paul who transfigured the Jewish 
Messiah to the Hellenistic owr7p. The soul of Egyptian 
monasticism, whose example has contributed more to the con- 
version of the West than all gospels and epistles, was the 
wisdom not of Jesus, but of Egyptian Neo-Platonism; the 
teaching of Origen (to say nothing of Gnosis) was more akin 
to the spirit of Iran and Hindustan than to that of Palestine, 
and that which ultimately penetrated to the barbarians of the 
north and became the faith of the Crusaders, is something 
totally different from original Christianity. Nevertheless, 
Christianity is to be traced back to this original form, more 
essentially than to apparently more closely related manifesta- 
tions, so that we are fully justified in calling ourselves Chris- 
tians. The spiritual forces which are actively manifest in his- 
tory assume different forms, according to the natures through 
which they act; they can do so because no definite form is 
necessary or essential to them. The experience of love in the 
Christian sense can fall as well to the lot of woman as to that 
of man, to the man of action as well as to the sufferer, to the 
priest as well as to the warrior, and it expresses itself differ- 
ently in each one of them to such an extent that the expressions 
are often completely contradictory. Nevertheless, they regard 
themselves as the children of one spirit, and justifiably so; 


CHAP.47. - KOYA-SAN 153 


the peculiar modality of his personal experience, as such, 
gives the Christian, not this or that profession, this or that 
method of behaviour; his love was unknown to the Hindus 
and to the Neo-Platonists; it goes back solely to Jesus. A 
certain quality of love is the essential quality of Christianity, 
and this has remained unchanged through all the transforma- 
tions in appearance, from the days of Jesus to the present age. 
Just so, Japanese Buddhism, in spite of all foreign influences 
which have fashioned its empirical nature, is Buddhism in 
essence. It is not perhaps Buddhism in the same sense in which 
Christianity is Christianity: the specific charity which animates 
it is more generally Indian than specifically Buddhist, more 
in accordance with Krishna than with Gautama; but this Indian 
form of love penetrates it throughout. And if it manifests 
itself very differently in Japan from the way it does in India, 
then this appears as a parallel to what happened within Chris- 
tendom: Buddhist, like Christian, love is capable of manifold 
manifestations; both remain essentially what they are, no mat- 
ter how they are represented. Regarded from the point of 
view of an absolute ideal, their manifestations appear neither 
here nor there as of equal value, but they have proved them- 
selves in practice to be equally beneficial, especially from the 
angle of Buddhist charity, which demands that every phenom- 
enon shall be measured only by the standard of its own pos- 
sible perfection. It cannot be expected of young, energetic, 
active men that they should feel love and compassion as a 
maiden does; they should, whatever happens, act for the sake 
of good. If they fight, it should be for an ideal, if they flare 
up, it should be from rage at the oppression of the weak; thus 
the ideal is brought nearer to realisation even by them. And 
this takes place quicker than one thinks. Constant action sub- 
ject to an idea, no matter how little it is understood, prepares 
the path for the idea to become conscious; even the most hate- 
inspired battle for the ideal of love develops the capacity for 
love. There is a profound truth in the myth of a ‘Providence,’ 
which, in slow and quiet toil and often contrary to all appear- 
ances, turns everything to good account: the spiritual forces 
which became manifest in Christ and Buddha really continue to 


154 JAPAN PART VI 


operate unceasingly, and, instead of becoming weaker in the 
course of time, they become more powerful from millennium 
to millennium. 

Marvellous indeed is the manner in which the same signifi- 
cance conditions similar manifestations everywhere. Unfor- 
tunately, our age has little understanding for such processes. 
The history of Christianity is often regarded as a progressive 
degeneration, because its development has led away from 
original Christianity, and the same applies to Buddhism. 
For the moment I will assume that original Christianity and 
original Buddhism embody the highest phases: even subject to 
this supposition, it would be a mistake to place a low value on 
the later formation, because a highest condition is attainable 
only by a few chosen individuals, and a world religion which 
is to save every one must take every one into consideration. It 
must countenance temporary conditions, it must lead men 
upwards lovingly, it must give them courage where they would 
otherwise despair. ‘That is just what the Christian Church, 
especially in its medizval phase, understood and achieved in 
the most masterly manner, and the later forms of the Buddhist 
Church are animated by the same intention. But original 
Christianity and original Buddhism do not embody the highest 
human conditions at all, and thus the whole argument falls 
to the ground. Christ and Buddha were possibly the greatest 
of all human beings, and probably attained their supreme per- 
fection, but they were, for all that, definite human beings, 
their perfection was that of a definite type, namely the ascetic 
type, and precluded all other forms of perfection. Accordingly, 
original Christianity as well as original Buddhism were not 
destined to direct the paths of mankind. They either had to 
remain limited sects, or they had to enlarge their horizon if 
they aimed at a wide sphere of effectiveness. This widening 
has taken place in both cases, and in both cases it has made 
these religions more profound. The Catholic Church is the 
profounder system compared with that of the original Chris- 
tians. It sounds like a dubious compromise, this justification 
of war by love, of intolerance by generosity, of insufficiency by 
the perfection in the beyond; in reality it does not refer a lower 


CHAP. 47 KOYA-SAN 155 


condition to a higher one, but it leads the lower towards the 
higher, and hallows insufficiency as a stage upon the road to 
the goal. The ‘true doctrine’ does not lie buried in the original 
condition, it beckons, rather, as the ideal of a better future. 
There is no doubt that the sayings of Jesus are understood 
more profoundly to-day than they were heretofore. But this 
does not mean that we recognise better what Jesus meant, but 
that we are understanding more profoundly the true, that is to 
say the objectively correct, meaning of His wisdom, whether 
Jesus was aware of it Himself or not. Probably He was not 
aware of it; His immediate disciples certainly were not, and 
misunderstanding has governed for a long period most Chris- 
tian manifestations. But this misunderstanding has prepared 
the road for recognition; without Catholicism, Reformation 
and counter-Reformation, without dogmatic conflicts and text- 
criticism, we would never have got to the point from which we 
can behold the pure meaning of Christianity..—In the same 
way Northern Buddhism implies exactly what its followers 
believe, not a degeneration, but the crowning of Hinayana. 
Most of its doctrines can hardly be traced back to Gautama. 
But they are very much nearer to the truth. 

I know little which is more profound than the teaching of 
Acvagosha—nothing more far-sighted, more all-embracing, 
than the Mahayana system, and this lies at the root of the 
Japanese Church. But of course, this Church is not what it 
might have become among Indians; as in our case, misunder- 
standing has controlled its external development. All the 
excrescences, re-, mal-, and de-formations which in our case are 
characteristic, on the one hand, of Catholicism, on the other 
of Protestantism, can also be established in the case of Japanese 
Buddhism of to-day. There are sects which concern them- 
selves chiefly with thaumaturgy, others in which a hierarchic 
system throttles all individual life, and again others which 
reject all traditional wisdom and teach the individual to rely 
entirely on his own personal opinion. Even the extremest 
manifestations which could be expected did not fail to appear: 


1T have tried to define the Christian doctrine as it will live in the future in 
my lecture ‘Weltanschauung u. Lebensgestaltung’ in Der Leuchter, 1924. 


156 JAPAN PART VI 


a religion which laid the greatest stress upon insight has de- 
veloped into a religion of blind faith. Such a religion is most 
readily professed by every one for whom thought presents a 
difficulty. What penetrated to Japan originally was a philo- 
sophical conception of the world which could only seem appro- 
priate to Indians, this philosophical nation par excellence; it 
had to be changed in order to persist among the Japanese; and 
this is what happened. At an early stage reformers appeared, 
who shaped Mahayana, which in itself is capable of many 
interpretations, into definite doctrines, which were more in 
accordance with the Japanese temperament; salvation by faith 
became more and more the fundamental dogma of Northern 
Buddhism. And to-day the Shinshu sect, the most superficial 
of all, according to which the mere calling upon the name of 
Amida and trust in the efficacy of this practice is said to suffice 
to guarantee eternal bliss to the faithful, threatens to expel all 
others from Japan. 


+ 


IT is worth a great deal to me that my first personal contact 
with Japanese Buddhism took place in its own stronghold: 
here its peculiarity predominates absolutely over those ele- 
ments which it has in common with other forms of Buddhism. 
I would never have believed that from Indian foundations 
something so Western could have developed: for the religion 
of the monks of Koya-San is far more Western in effect than 
it is Asiatic. They are remarkably akin to medieval Christians 
in type; just what is best in them seems to be the child rather of 
the Christian than of the Buddhist spirit, in so far as I abstract 
the latter from what I have seen in Burma and Ceylon. There 
is something like a specific ecclesiastic head, who is to be 
found among all peoples; still, no one could mistake a Brah- 
min for a Catholic prelate. A Japanese abbot, however, could 
pass for the latter without further ‘ado; his traits are fashioned 
by a closely related spirit. This is evidently due to the fact 
that both religions imply objectifications in a similar sense. 
Even the Tantrikas, the ritualists among the Hindus, for 
whom strict observance is the only means to salvation, regard 
appearance nevertheless as Maya, not as necessarily related to 


CHAP. 47 KOYA-SAN 157 


being. For the Catholics, the Church is the living body of 
Christianity, which can be separated from its soul only by 
death, and something similar seems to apply to Japanese Bud- 
dhism. The latter does not profess a corresponding dogma, 
on the contrary: in so far as it represents a philosophy it takes 
appearance no more seriously than Brahmanism; even in Japan, 
mutually exclusive professions are regarded as equally ortho- 
dox. But the hieratic sense of the Chinese, whose primary in- 
clination is to express all content directly and completely in 
appearance, had given a highly organised body to Buddhism at 
an early stage, which later grew in Japan, among more versatile 
people, from a work of art more and more into a living being. 

But both Churches—the Catholic and the Buddhist—yet 
differ from each other most essentially. In the former, what is 
objective is born of the intellect. No matter how irrational its 
dogmas may be—their relation and development have been 
attended by pure reason. One and the same spirit of strict 
rationality had animated all Christian manifestations of the 
Middle Ages, from the theodicy to the spiritual hierarchy, 
from the cathedral to the summa of Thomas Aquinas; mankind 
has never, neither before nor since, attached such weight to 
symmetry, to clarity and rational cohesion. The Japanese 
objectification of spirit in the Church is wholly unintellectual, 
and for this reason it lacks all the advantages which rationality 
alone supplies. On the other hand, it is artistic in the highest 
degree; her forms are never allegories, always symbols, and 
they have all the advantages of an expression whose elements 
are born of feeling. They are extraordinarily convincing in 
effect; I recognise them as a matter of course; my soul uncon- 
sciously enters into relation with God in Koya-San, in the 
Buddhist manner. And I am beginning to guess that, in so 
far as Confucius is right, the Japanese Church may be regarded 
as the crown of Indian wisdom. Kung Fu Tse taught that 
only such wisdom was to be regarded as perfect which ap- 
peared in the form of charm: this has happened here. It is 
the genuine spirit of Mahayana, all-embracing, earnest and 
profound, which animates this form of Buddhism—but its 
appearance is pure beauty and charm. And this does not 
estrange me: I have never, on the contrary, felt closer to the 


158 JAPAN PART VI 


profoundest revelations of Indian wisdom than during the con- 
templation of Japanese images of Buddha. 

But strange: what moves me so much seems to say nothing 
to the Japanese; nowhere do I feel a direct experience of the 
harmony of appearance and significance; it seems as if they 
did not know what they were doing when they materialised 
the spirit of Mahayana. And as I let my gaze roam once 
more over the monastery, with its golden temples, its decora- 
tive clergy, within the magnificent frame of the cryptomeria 
grove, suddenly reality is changed for me into a theatrical 
scene. No, this Church in all its greatness and beauty is quite 
unsubstantial. It really means nothing except as art. The 
whole pathos of the Catholic Church is wanting. Where the 
Christian lives, the Japanese Buddhist only represents. 
Though this representation may possibly imply the extreme 
possibilities of his experience. . . . 


aa 


I inspect the holy places together with the pilgrims who 
came up with me to Koya. How different these pilgrims are 
from Indian pilgrims! Only women fairly advanced in years 
seem to take their journey seriously in the religious sense; the 
younger women regard it no differently from the men, as a 
cheerful holiday excursion, during which many new things are 
to be seen, and they wear the pilgrim garment chiefly from a 
feeling for style, or from a delight in mummery. They listen 
to the sagas and the marvellous stories which are connected 
with the individual temples, with that semi-sceptical credulity 
with which immature children listen to fairy-tales, and the 
feeling of piety which takes hold of them in the place where 
Kobo Daishi, the founder of the monastery, a great magician 
and miracle-worker, is said to live to-day awaiting the day of 
his resurrection, contains more curiosity than religious devo- 
tion. Well, what the Koya pilgrim is expected to believe is 
really asking rather too much of him. The Shingon sect, to 
whom this monastery belongs, practises more magic than any 
other, and the Japanese of to-day regard these practices very 
sceptically. Even the priests do not seem to think too highly 


CHAP.47 KOYA-SAN 159 


of their cult. They prefer to talk about Fichte and Kant, and 
they evade my questions relating to dogma and cult with a 
gentle smile. But all, priests as well as congregation, join in 
the religious performances; not one of them wants to be a 
spoil-sport. They all have too much feeling for form not to 
carry out all ritual with artistic seriousness. Their seriousness 
is really that of the comedian, who has entered into his part 
wholeheartedly. This morning I missed the early Mass in 
the temple where I am staying. As I expressed my regret to 
the abbot at this fact, he declared himself at once ready to 
celebrate it once more for me, because the very ancient ritual, 
which had probably come via India from Egypt, would cer- 
tainly interest me. This was done, of course, from politeness, 
and I am heartily obliged to him, all the more so as this service 
was actually one of the most remarkable which I have ever 
attended. Nevertheless, I doubt whether a priest who is really 
in earnest would go so far for the sake of courtesy. 

It is quite correct; the Japanese mind lacks religious pro- 
fundity in the Indian sense. Nowhere do I feel anything of 
the inner experience which transfigures the faces of the pilgrims 
in Benares or Rameshvaram; and the conversations which I 
have had with the priests concerning Mahayana doctrine did 
not teach me anything whatever. And yet, Buddhism in Japan 
seems to have a much more vital significance than one is led to 
believe from the first casual impressions. ‘The Japanese are 
not religious in the Indian sense, nor in the Christian, for 
they are wanting in profundity of recognition and imagina- 
tive powers; when they do not think, they believe, as the simple 
people do everywhere, in certain miraculous facts and cir- 
cumstances; and when they have learned to think, they begin 
to doubt. But the processes of thought are nothing essential 
to the Japanese: what is most essential, most profound in 
him, appears in his sensibility. I say in his sensibility, not in his 
feeling, his soul, his heart; it is in the manner in which the 
surface, not the depths, of his psyche answers to the im- 
pressions of the internal and external worlds. The inner life 
of the Japanese takes place on the whole in the domain of 
sensibility, just as in the case of children and young women. 


160 JAPAN PART VI 


Here, too, his religiosity is expressed. The faith of a child is 
no profound faith, and yet it leads directly to God. His kind 
of faith, however, is the most lovable of all. Thus, the Jap- 
anese religiosity, which, seen from the angle of the spirit, ap- 
pears shallow, has created realities in the domain of sensibility 
and in the realm of moods which belong to the most priceless 
treasures of the human race. There is nothing more fragrant 
than the religious lyricism of the country of the Rising Sun, 
nothing more sweet than the conceptions of love which are 
symbolised by Amida and Kwannon, nothing more ingeniously 
delicate than the concept which the Japanese Buddhists asso- 
ciate with life after death. The missionaries who understand 
Christianity most profoundly, and who have at the same time 
penetrated most deeply into the higher forms of Buddhism, 
are, therefore, unanimous in their conviction that, if our ideas 
of divine grace and love are the more profound in themselves, 
the Japanese ideas and presentations of the same qualities are 
the more beautiful. The process of concretion takes place in 
the realm of sensibility; in this sphere the Japanese stands, 
perhaps, higher than all other men. No wonder, therefore, 
that in the individual instance, in spite of his essential super- 
ficiality, he excels every one in the power of religious sensibility. 
This is true, above all, of the Japanese woman: I can never 
see enough of these delightful children, who bow, full of 
reverence, before the golden tablets. They know nothing of 
faith in the Indian sense; they probably do not even know 
whether they believe; they laugh where they should be serious. 
And yet, they are unmistakably animated by that very love 
whose ideal is embodied by Avalokitecvara. I would almost 
declare that they all feel, as in India perhaps only a Krishna 
does, or as only a St. Francis of Assisi has felt among us; and 
in their existence, which is so ready to sacrifice itself, in their 
relation to those which are nearest to them, they practise daily 
what it is beyond their power to understand. 


+ 


THE same pilgrims who displayed so little feeling of so- 
lemnity when visiting the Buddhistic sanctuaries now seem to be 


CHAP.47 | KOYA-SAN 161 


deeply moved when an expert guide leads them through the 
cemetery. It is the most impressive cemetery which I have 
seen; no country of Europe possesses a similar monument of 
patriotic piety. We are following along an avenue of gigantic 
cryptomeria, which leads for a good mile over the summit of 
Koya; at each stone monument erected to an individual or to 
a family, our guide stops and calls out the name. And there is 
no one who is not connected for ever with the history of Japan, 
and not one of her great sons is missing. The famous Daimyo 
clans have here their sign in stone; here rest the great military 
leaders and the great statesmen. Not all of them are actually 
buried on the Koya, but they all have their tombstones on it, 
and it therefore seems as if the whole of Japan slumbers here. 
. . » I look at the pilgrims who recently laughed and chatted 
so light-heartedly. Now they seem as if transformed. Their 
innermost depths have been stirred. The dainty surface is 
transfused by profound seriousness. 

Here for the first time I have come in contact with the soul 
of Japan. It does not appear in the relation of the individual to 
God, nor in the faith in transcendental reality, not in the 
latter’s realisation in thought or life: it expresses itself in the 
relation of the Japanese to Japan. Patriotism is the profoundest 
factor in the Japanese. His relation to his country, its great- 
ness, the continuance of its glorious existence, means to him 
what the relation to Brahma means to the Indian, what mem- 
bership of the universal order means to the Chinese. It is not 
easy for us to enter into this quality of profundity; it is not 
profound to us any more. But every one has known moments 
during which feelings from a far-off hoary past have rushed 
irrepressibly from a dark source into his consciousness, in 
which blood relationship and national solidarity seemed pro- 
founder ties to him than his relation to God or the universe. 
In those moments he was related to the Japanese. 

The man who attempts to visualise the soul of the Japanese 
from the experience of such conditions will not regard it any 
longer as superficial; he will recognise that the greatest pro- 
fundity and extremity emanate from it. Only it speaks a lan- 
guage which is strange to us. We cannot revere anything con- 


162 JAPAN PART VI 


crete as the profountlest significance. For us, loyalty can never 
be a last instance, we can understand the metaphysical unity 
of country, people, state, nation, family and ruling house, 
which is still the living fundamental presupposition of every 
not too Westernised Japanese, only with our intellect, and not 
even the most patriotic modern European has experienced, in 
times of peace, the feeling of absolute moral obligation towards 
his country as such. The feeling which speaks out of the verses 
of Take Hirose, the hero of Port Arthur: 


‘As infinite as the dome of heaven above us 
Is the debt we owe our Emperor; 
Immeasurable as the deep sea below us 

Is the debt we owe our country. 

The time has come for us to pay our debts.’ 


This is a feeling which he will only appreciate when the 
danger of war has temporarily changed his mode of conscious- 
ness, when the monad has been transformed into a cell in the 
national body, when, for the time being, he has ceased to 
exist as an autonomous individuality. For him the individual 
soul is the ultimate earthly garment of metaphysical reality. 
All ideal demands are related to it, and in comparison with it 
even the mother-country seems to be something superficial. 
It is superficial, judged by the standard of the cognisant spirit, 
but this does not necessarily imply that men who feel like the 
Japanese are themselves superficial: their love of country 
means an extreme of profundity. Every expression of life is 
profound which is rooted in the principle of life. For this 
reason only such thoughts are deep which go back objectively to 
the basis of things—that is to say, really deep thoughts in the 
ordinary meaning of the word; but in the spheres of volition 
and feeling, profundity is independent of objective depth; 
there it depends on the degree to which subjective appearance 
mirrors subjective being. Now the subjectivity of the Japanese 
is defined by the ideas and feelings described above; for him 
there is nothing beyond them. Consequently, they are pro- 
found in relation to him. An essentially superficial people 


CHAP. 47 KOYA-SAN 163 


would neither have vanquished the gigantic Empire of Russia, 
nor would it, above all, have had the tenacity and courage of 
sacrifice which was required in order to reorganise itself com- 
pletely in a span of thirty years. 

The profoundest qualities of the Japanese are expressed in 
patriotism. This profundity, seen from the angle of the mind, 
is no doubt superficial, and in so far the general judgment 
concerning him, namely that he lacks depth, is justified. 
Everywhere where appearance cannot be traced back to its 
living background, to Japan, his understanding and his ability 
fail. The Japanese is not deep nor can he be, either religiously, 
in the sense of the Indians, or philosophically, in the sense of 
the Germans, or more generally in any speculative sense. But 
here, if anywhere, the truth becomes obvious that every appear- 
ance within its limits can give expression to Atman. ‘The per- 
fection of the rose means the same before God as that of Bud- 
dha; the former is nearer to God than the latter before he had 
become perfect. Thus, the perfect patriotism of the Japanese 
is worth more metaphysically than the higher insight of the 
Westerner, which stops short half-way. And further, the per- 
fection of the rose is something absolute: no man will ever 
attain to it; in the sense of the rose, man stands below her. 
Thus, the individualised and profoundly thinking peoples, 
where the exceptional condition of national war does not de- 
velop them retrogressively, are inferior as patriots to the 
Japanese. The Indians whom I mean are altogether unpatri- 
otic, as their consciousness regards manifestation as far beneath 
them, the Chinese likewise, because their ideal of China is too 
high to be touched by the accidents of history; we white men, 
however, once closely related to the Japanese, will become 
progressively less patriotic in their sense (in spite of the appear- 
ance to the contrary, caused by the automatic activity of the 
conscious spirit which evokes corresponding emotion by the 
means of nationalistic theory and also by the solidarity of all 
interests in the modern state), because a man’s native country 
can no more imply an extreme to the completely individualised 
than to the most profound man, because individualism neces- 
sarily produces world-citizenship. That is an advance from 


164 JAPAN PART VI 


the point of view of recognition. At the same time it weakens 
physiological cohesion. The Japan of yesterday is closer than 
our future to the ideal national condition. 

I am studying the faces of a few officers who are accompany- 
ing me through the cemetery; they are unmistakable Samu- 
rais. An outlook on life shines in their eyes which is shared in 
Europe only by posthumous sons of past centuries. I enquired 
about a particularly magnificent monument which has only 
been erected recently. It was put up to the memory of those 
who fell in the Manchurian War, Russians as well as Japanese. 
It is the noblest quality of knighthood to honour the enemy. 


48 
NARA 


ow I delight in religious art. According to my feelings, 
N Buddhism has produced the highest of this kind upon 
earth, and many of its most glorious monuments are to be 
found in Japan, in and about Nara and Kyoto. How unspir- 
itual do the highest manifestations of Christian imagination 
appear by the side of those pictures in which Amida, embody- 
ing the idea of light, itself transfigures earthly darkness, rising 
like the sun over the mountains, or by the side of those con- 
templative and beneficent Buddhas in which the peace of the 
soul has perhaps received its final expression! In depth of 
feeling the simple artists of our earthly Middle Ages were 
probably not the inferiors of the Buddhists, but their feeling 
was broken against their reason. They were educated to re- 
gard the manifestations of their faith either literally—as his- 
torical or even scientific facts which, as such, signified something 
ultimate—or else to interpret them allegorically, and both these 
attitudes rendered directness impossible. In rare cases their 
religious feeling has nevertheless expressed itself directly in the 
execution of Biblical designs and their effect is then all the 
more moving; the majority of their works are only indirect ex- 
pressions. The Buddhists, like all descendants of the Indian 
spirit, never regarded dogmas and myths as more than means 


CHAP. 48 ~ NARA 165 


of expression; they never treated them as substances. For this 
reason, Buddhistic artists could succeed in what was denied 
to Christians. 

Probably all the fundamental conceptions of Far-Eastern 
religious art are of Indian or Greco-Indian origin, and that 
which has been preserved in Borobodur and Angkor Vat proves 
by itself that the Hindus once upon a time were also great as 
sculptors. Still, the greatest embodiments of their artistic 
volition which have been preserved to us are not their work. 
The most important religious art of the East was created by 
Chinese masters, and their ideas have found their most fruitful 
soil not in China but in Japan. It is a sign of profound misun- 
derstanding to point again and again to the fact that Japanese 
art is not indigenous: no art was ever absolutely indigenous; 
Greek as well as Indian and Chinese sculpture was dependent 
upon foreign countries in so far as their highest development 
only began after external stimulus had fertilised the native 
genius. It is true that Japanese religious art has remained 
dependent upon its examples to the very end, that it has never 
rivalled them and has developed nothing new from the old; 
to this extent one cannot compare it fairly with Chinese art. 
But it is nevertheless thoroughly genuine, a true expression of 
inwardness; in fact the latter is true in a wider sense than 
in China. It is not necessary to have invented the form of 
expression which is most appropriate to one; one does not 
need to alter what is inherited, so that it corresponds with one’s 
own personality. Almost the whole East turns to quotations 
when it wishes to give expression to a direct personal experi- 
ence, and this does not mean in their case, as among us, either 
impotence or lack of taste: it means that the soul recog- 
nises herself again and again in certain eternal manifestations, 
just as Nature continually renews herself in identical forms, 
with undiminished originality. The world of forms of Bud- 
dhist art corresponds to the Japanese Buddhist religiosity as 
completely as it probably only corresponded in exceptional 
souls in China, which was already thoroughly Confucianised— 
no matter whether this correspondence existed previously, or 
whether it was, conversely, created @ posteriori through the 


166 JAPAN PART VI 


influence of Buddhism upon the Japanese soul—it represents 
a true image of spiritual life in Japan. It isa Japanese and not 
a Chinese mood of the soul which speaks from the sweet 
Kwannon pictures, the discreet and yet rich chromatics of the 
Mandaras is the reflection of Japanese, not of Chinese, in- 
wardness. One might say that if all forms and colours down 
to the very last had been invented on the Continent and if there 
had been no Japanese who adopted them, then the last possible 
connection between art and life would have remained unre- 
lated. In Japan, Buddhist art had become the normal expres- 
sion of religious feeling; for one Fra Angelico in Tuscany, 
there were hundreds here. Many saints and fathers of the 
Church were simultaneously painters and sculptors; the ma- 
jority of the statues and pictures which are shown in the old 
temples have been created by priests and monks. 

It will be objected here: but the Japanese are not spiritual; 
how should the most spiritual of all the arts be appropriate to 
them? MHereupon one must reply at first cautiously that, if 
the modern Japanese are rarely spiritual, this does not prove 
that this was always the case. The concept of a people, of a 
race, corresponds to a definite idea always only within definite 
limits of time. The Jews of to-day would not create a Bible, 
the American business men of the twentieth century do not let 
us guess that their ancestors escaped across the ocean from 
religious motives in order to found a kingdom of saints upon 
earth. Pure blood may be considered as a constant factor in 
such an equation, but the variable factors also have their say, 
and, not infrequently, they decide. The variable quality of 
Christianisation has, in the course of centuries, in spite of all 
the existing constant factors, unified the most diverse races of 
the West psychically to such a degree that a non-European 
can hardly distinguish one from the other. Buddhism has 
achieved something similar. The latter has, in accordance 
with its softer nature, not influenced external life nearly so 
powerfully. On the other hand, its greater spirituality has 
led to results which Christianity has never achieved to the same 
degree: it has spiritualised peoples who by nature were not 


CHAP. 48 NARA 167 


spiritual, or it has at any rate done so in some of its expressions. 
The anti-metaphysical Chinese have risen as Buddhistic artists 
to heights of metaphysical knowledge which no other people 
has attained to; and the Japanese, whose mental constant 
factor as a race has probably always been matter-of-factness, 
have been illuminated through the light of Mahayana for 
centuries to such an extent that precisely their matter-of-fact- 
ness has led to spiritual achievements. After all, religious 
experience is something as purely empirical as the experience 
of a child of the world; only it takes place in a different sphere, 
the entrance to which is, however, open to every one. One ray 
of light from the jewel on the brow of Buddha pointed out 
this entrance to the Japanese. As long as they were illuminated 
by it, they were able to behold and to achieve divinity. 

To-day, in face of the glories of Nara, I have at last seen the 
problem clearly which has occupied me since Koya: how is it 
possible that the Japanese, who ‘know not what they do,’ may 
be regarded in many ways as perfecting the ideal of the Indian 
sages: it is directly connected with the fact that the omniscient 
Indians have hardly ever expressed themselves in a manner 
which did them justice, and something similar is true of the 
Germans; that so far, the most permanent manifestations of 
the European spirit do not emanate from the more profound 
Teutons but from the Latin peoples; and this means that the 
supreme expression of spirituality is never found by spiritually 
but by materialistically minded people. 

(1 am here using the concept ‘materialistic,? of course, in a 
far wider sense than is customary; as a general description for 
every mental tendency which lies in the direction of appearance 
as such. ) 

The control of matter requires organs which are a perfect 
match for it, in particular fully developed senses; the mind as 
such is not sufficient. As one and the same man is never 
equipped equally perfectly with mind and with senses—there 
is, rather, an antinomic relation between these two traits—the 
materialistic individual is most successful in the world of 
appearances. Now the expression even of spiritual significance 


168 ) JAPAN PART YI 


belongs in all circumstances to the sphere of phenomena; the 
best expression is found, not by the man most transfused with 
spirit, but by him who knows best how to materialise spirit. 
And such a man is a materialist. He never recognises the 
spiritual quality as such by himself, but if it is pointed out to 
him he grasps it then: and for this reason, the best expressions 
of spiritual truths have emanated from poets, not from saints 
and philosophers. ‘The spirit, however, is present in each 
individual; every one knows the spirit, whether he is aware of 
it or not. This explains why materialistic people, to whom no 
spiritual truth would ever have been revealed, have understood 
and appreciated its expressions, as soon as they became familiar 
with them. The Higher Buddhism met with immediate com- 
prehension in China and Japan and received there, not long 
afterwards, its sublimest forms of expression, because the 
people of the Far East have an incomparable capacity for 
expression at their disposal, and because those fundamental 
ideas which they would never have conceived themselves ex- 
isted already. The materialistic temperament of the Chinese 
and the Japanese, therefore, does not provide a riddle in re- 
lation to their religious art, but, on the contrary, makes it in- 
telligible. As far as Japan in particular is concerned, it bears 
to China the typical relation of the disciple who completes the 
work of his master. The pioneer tediously breaks his way 
through material; he rarely lives long enough to express him- 
self completely, and he rarely cares about final expression. A 
disciple beginning where his master had to stop carries out 
what he has outlined and if he has a subtle mind, with an 
understanding for the peculiar function of form, possessing 
in addition taste and feeling for shades and high lights, then 
it falls to his lot to carry the conception of his master, which, 
as such, is far beyond his powers, to its supreme perfection. 
That is what the best of the religious artists of Japan have 
achieved in the domain of the Buddhist world of forms; this 
world owes to them its charm, its sweetness, its Franciscan 
fervour. The Japanese have never been deeply religious like 
the Indians; but they were fervently religious, precisely in the 
Franciscan sense. The Holy Ghost never revealed Himself as 


CHAP. 48 NARA 169 


such to them, but He has transfigured their sensibility. And 
by means of this transfigured sensibility He has created works 
of art which resemble Him as nothing else does upon earth. 


+ 


THE impression of the catholicity of the spirit of the first 
century after Christ impresses itself upon me once more in face 
of the art treasures of Nara. What a magnificent synthesis 
which included Indian wisdom, Greek forms, Alexandrian 
doctrines and Christian dogma! In the Temple of Horiuji 
there reigns a Korean Buddha. His specifically Far Eastern 
appearance yet condenses within itself all significance which 
has ever been perceived between the Indus and the Nile... . 
And at the same time, there is no question of eclecticism. That 
marvellous impulse to love, which in the West transmuted 
the Stoic into a Christian, the proud into the humble, which 
in the heart of Judaism, which only knew of justice, created 
the sublimest religion of divine grace, which transformed the 
self-sufficient ascetic of early Buddhism into the Bodhisattva 
who made the vow not to enter into Nirvana as long as one 
human soul languished unsaved in earthly fetters—this impulse 
has really fused into one what appeared to be capable of 
union in theory only. But if I now compare in my mind both 
the final products of this process—Christianity in the West 
and Japanese Buddhism in the Far East—then I must bow 
once more before the greater profundity of recognition, as well 
as the higher artistic capacity of expression of the Orient. 
How much more true is the doctrine of Mahayana than the 
equivalent doctrine of Christianity! Whereas in our case 
narrow-minded Africans and unphilosophical Romans, or at 
best verbose Greeks, developed our doctrines, this was done 
in the East by wise Indians; and whereas among us literal 
acceptance and allegorical interpretation of Christian mythol- 
ogy bowdlerised its form into a kind of hieroglyphic descrip- 
tion which was incapable of expressing what was intended 
directly, the artistic delicacy of the East created, from almost 
identical manifestations, a language which revealed the eternal 
quality of appearance with unrivalled directness. Amida is 


170 ; JAPAN PART VI 


nothing else but our Saviour, Kwannon does not differ in idea 
from the Virgin Mary, who incarnates the feminine aspect of 
divine love; Sukhavati is identical with our heaven. But 
whereas these myths of Christianity have remained scientific 
facts up to the present day, or, even worse, have been under- 
stood as allegories, the East has never regarded them as any- 
thing but symbolical. In India this process was philosophically 
conscious, in China half-conscious, half-instinctive, in Japan 
it took its course probably quite unconsciously, with the child- 
like naiveté of the genuine artist. Again and again I come 
back to the word of the crucified Saviour: ‘They know not 
what they do.? The Japanese are undoubtedly quite innocent 
of the marvel of their religious art; all the more innocent as 
they really imitated the art of others in the main. But their 
‘copies’ are more spiritual than our originals. 

As far as spirituality is concerned, Indian wisdom is and 
remains the maximum, and its most perfect means of expres- 
sion is the artistic feeling of the Chinese and the Japanese. 
Of how little avail is the gift of intellect here! I think back 
to my experiences in Adyar, and the teachings of modern theos- 
ophy. They are almost identical with those of Mahayana, and 
the theosophists are probably a better match than the Japanese 
for their intellectual content. None the less, Japanese Bud- 
dhism towers high above modern theosophy. Theosophy does 
not treat the Indian doctrine more wisely than our Middle Ages 
treated the Greco-Christian teaching: it too accepts literally, or 
interprets allegorically; its synthesis is also an external aggre- 
gate. The racial temperament appears, after all, to be insur- 
mountable: Anglo-Saxons remain Anglo-Saxons, a practical 
but unspiritual race, even where they convert themselves to 
Mahayana. Let us hope that the Japanese will remain Far 
Easterners in spite of their tendency to Westernisation. 


aa 


yes, racial disposition is final wherever the power of faith 
and imagination are not extraordinarily great. In the case 
of the Japanese both are exceptionally small, and for this 
reason blood inheritance has an unusually large significance 


CHAP. 48 | NARA 171 


for them. It is not true, however often it be asserted, that 
they, as imitators, are highly changeable; transformation pre- 
supposes imagination. They have remained the same through 
all their changes far more than any other people. No matter 
to what influence they surrendered themselves—Korean, Chi- 
nese or European—it has not altered them in any essential. 
The history of Japanese Buddhism illustrates this fact with 
extraordinary clearness. 

The monks of Nara were famous as robber knights. The 
gentle wisdom of India did not have the slightest enervating 
effect upon these warlike troopers—rather it accommodated 
itself to their outlook. Buddhism melted almost immedi- 
ately into the native cult of ancestors and gods, acquired a 
thorough-going god of war soon afterwards, and it did not take 
long before the Buddhist monasteries caused the rulers more 
trouble than the most restive vassals. Indian wisdom, as such, 
had a direct effect only on that portion and those sides of the 
Japanese to which it corresponded to begin with: the women 
and their feeling for art. The Japanese woman is a born 
Buddhist in her gentle sufferance, her selfless warmth of heart; 
and as an artist the Japanese is closely related to the Indian. 
I perceive it ever more clearly: the Buddhist Church in refer- 
ence to the popular life of the Japanese means, in so far as 
it is really Buddhist, only an artistic phrase, nothing more. 
But for this very reason it has meant every now and again 
something so very personal to the individual, especially to 
women. The Catholic Church was, above all, a state; it has 
educated more nations than individuals, it meant to be a refuge 
rather for humanity than for men. For this reason, the 
Catholic saints are wanting in the intimate traits which make 
Buddhist saints appear so lovable. There is only one among 
them who seems comparable with them: St. Francis of Assisi. 

The wistaria is in blossom at the moment. These delicious 
clinging plants wind themselves to the tops of the defiant fir- 
trees in the parks. In this way the rough and the sweet ele- 
ments of Japan have always been marvellously complementary. 
Love for women, battle for men; Buddhism for her, Shinto 
for him. But Bushido for both, the spirit of proud, aspiring 


172 AP AGW PART VI 


purity: of the possible formulas which reconcile contradictions 
into unity, this does not seem to me to be the worst. 


+ 


I Have several times touched upon the Franciscan character 
of that which is profoundest and best in Japanese-Buddhist 
religiosity; I must tarry a little longer on this point of conver- 
gence of the East and the West. There is no doubt that the 
qualities of sweetness, loveliness and delicacy are fundamen- 
tally the same, both here and there; it has certainly attained 
the higher degree of development in the Far East. But Fran- 
ciscanism is not exhausted in sweetness. I am reminded of a 
remark of Alfred Weber: The corresponding expression of the 
spirit which was once embodied in the Franciscan Order is to- 
day the Salvation Army. This is probably true. The whole 
of the spirit of St. Francis does not express itself in sweetness 
and fervour. In the East the counterpart is missing for 
the other quality, the quality of passionate action. 

Missionaries, of course, will say that this difference is due to 
the superiority of Christian teaching, and this much is certain: 
very similar fundamental ideas have evinced incomparably 
greater power in their Christian manifestations. But whence 
does this greater power come’ from ultimately? What is the 
reason that the Franciscan spirit has produced only sweetness 
in Japan, and in Europe sweetness as well as strength? It is 
hardly due to the teaching of Christ in itself, but to the tem- 
perament of those of whom it took possession; Mahayana 
doctrine would probably have had similar effects among us. I 
am trying to visualise the soul of St. Francis: love has never 
burned with such intensity in the heart of any Japanese; no 
saint of the whole East, if I exclude Islam, has ever felt such 
passion. What differentiates the Christian Bhakta from the 
Asiatic ultimately, is the fact that it has at its disposal a much 
larger quantity of energy. Thus, the advantages of Chris- 
tianity over Buddhism, in so far as they are in question, depend 
to a large extent on physiological circumstances; they depend 
on the more dense, more graceful material by means of which 
its spirit was able to express itself. I have never met a man 


CHAP. 48 NARA 173 


among the Asiatics whose psychic body was so full and so rich 
as is the case with the superior average individual among us; 
all of them, so far as I can judge, are psychically meagre com- 
pared with us. 

From this point of view, it seems to me that very interesting 
vistas of our supposed materialism and the supposed spiritu- 
ality of the East open before us. The facts are, of course, 
what they are, but their import is not quite the one which is 
usually ascribed to them. Spirituality appears generally more 
spiritual in the East than in the West, but it does not follow 
necessarily that the former is really nearer to the spirit: it need 
only follow that its body is more meagre. This interpretation 
is undoubtedly correct in many cases, and it applies presumably 
throughout in the case of Japan. A great deal of what seems 
admirable in India may find its true cause here: it is not diffi- 
cult to renounce, if one’s passions are feeble. This much is 
certain: the richer the body, the better are the means of ex- 
pression of the spirit. This is proved by Beethoven, by Bach; 
nothing Eastern rivals them. China proves this most im- 
pressively of all. Wherever it seems possible to compare Chi- 
nese with Japanese manifestations on the one hand, and with 
Indian on the other, that is to say wherever either an identical 
spirit lies at the bottom of cultural appearance, or where 
identical means of expression are employed, one is impressed 
by the greater substantiality of the Chinese manifestations. It 
seems not only more robust, more materially significant, not 
only more clearly defined, more powerfully executed, it seems 
to be animated from a greater depth. In order to bring pro- 
fundity to the surface, physical force is required; and the more 
surface is led back to its living basis, or is illuminated by it, 
the more clearly it appears. The Chinese are the most sub- 
stantial of the Asiatics; they are the only people whom I know 
whose psychic bodies can stand the comparison with our own. 
For this reason, Oriental spirituality has found its strongest 
earthly expression in China. 


174 JAPAN PART VI 


49 
KYOTO 


AM still deeply affected by the tragedy which has been 
] played on the boards before me. It was a famous historical 
drama, conducted and performed in a masterly manner and 
moving for this reason alone; but what overpowered me was 
the pathos of the mood, spread over the whole performance by 
the alternation at rhythmic intervals of the chanting of old 
folk tunes as the accompaniment to dumb mime, with the real 
action. I experience nothing short of a perfect evocation of 
the Middle Ages. 

The Middle Ages are not very far in the past in Japan. 
Their peculiar condition of consciousness and their forms of ex- 
pression are familiar to the aged from personal experience, so 
that it is easier in Japan to evoke their spirit than in Europe. 
Moreover, their character was far more crass in general, their 
manifestations were correspondingly stronger. I do not believe 
that the virtues of the Samurai spring from such profound roots 
as those of the Frankish Knight; the loyalty of the vassal, feel- 
ing for honour and contempt of death, probably meant more to 
him. But, thanks to the peculiar Japanese temperament, 
according to which presentation and being signify almost the 
same thing, for whom stylised exaggeration is natural, they 
appear more picturesque in his case, for which reason they 
excel our own in scenic and artistic value in general. The gist 
of the drama which I witnessed is roughly as follows: the 
feudal lord has entrusted a vassal clan with a valuable scroll of 
writing. The member of this clan who looks after it, shows 
more inclination to a lady of the court than it pleases his proud 
wife to behold. She determines to ruin her rival. For this 
purpose she removes the scroll, so that the representative of 
the feudal lord, who soon after appears to demand it back, 
finds the chest empty. Some one must have stolen the treasure. 
The mistress of the castle accuses the hated lady of this deed, 
and thereupon chastises her—the greatest disgrace which can 
overtake a lady of birth—with her slipper in front of the 


CHAP. 49 Key Ov 175 


assembled court. As a result of this humiliation, the falsely 
accused woman commits suicide. Her faithful servant, how- 
ever, avenges her death by beating the moral murderess with 
the same sandal, and then slays her in a knightly duel. The 
fable is simple enough and of small significance according to 
our ideas; for us, the tragic motives, moreover, do not seem to 
lie in the depths of human nature, but appear to be based in 
superficial conventions. But for these people, convention was 
nature. And any one who has personally experienced, under 
the influence of a perfect theatrical representation, the atmos- 
phere of the Japanese Middle Ages, will perceive, in what is 
apparently artificial, the purely human element in a shape as 
moving and naked as in a Greek tragedy of fate. Even ‘fate’ 
was, after all, a convention—we no longer believe in its power; 
even the passions which have since been used as motives are 
not necessarily compelling forces—for man can stand above 
them; it depends solely on where he actually does stand. If he 
identifies himself really and perfectly with a foolish prejudice, 
then this acquires the profundity of nature. Now the intensity 
of experience was so great in the case of medieval man that 
his prejudices imply more pathos than metaphysical tragedies 
do among modern people. 

A feeling which ‘resembles sorrow? steals over me. It is 
explicable enough: no matter how much I may be an in- 
tellectual, I feel nevertheless the fundamental instincts of 
the knight very vitally in me, and they no longer fit into this 
age. The days of the nobleman are numbered. What folly to 
see in this fact a sign of unqualified progress! The typical 
traits of the nobleman do, of course, not imply absolute values, 
but absolute values are innate in no manifestation; all are only 
definite forms of life, as such not essentially necessary, con- 
ditioned, limited, subject to change, and easily recognisable, 
especially in men, as accidental, because the barriers are 
psychical which separate one type from another here: one- 
sidednesses, peculiarities, prejudices. The knightly concept of 
honour is, no doubt, theoretically a prejudice, but the same 
applies to the professional honour of the merchant, and particu- 
larly to that which the freethinker proudly calls his lack of 


176 JAPAN PART VI 


bias. The question is, which prejudices are the better ones? In 
principle it may perhaps be foolish to ask: to be a stag is prej- 
udice from the point of view of the horse, and vice versa. All 
manifestations are an expression of inward necessity within 
the limits of external possibility, they are complementary to 
each other * and change more or less correlatively. But there 
are nevertheless better and worse prejudices in the sense that 
not every constellation permits the realisation of equal values, 
and some are lost altogether if a particular form of life dies 
out. In this sense the nobleman towers high above the types 
which irresistibly take his place to-day; no one is his equal in 
moral courage, idealism, self-denial, loyalty, nobility of out- 
look and disregard of material advantages. Thus, humanity 
suffers an irremediable loss through the extinction of the 
knightly spirit. 

It is true that a type is beginning to crystallise which, similar 
in spirit to that of the knight, is superior to it in so far as it is 
defined by less particularised prejudices and gives greater 
play to individual temperament: it is the type of the intellect- 
ualised and universalised English gentleman. But it is much 
more difficult to compass this type than the other, and for this 
reason it remains questionable if it will ever prevail. It re- 
quires an enormous innate culture, which even the bearers of 
the greatest names do not possess in our days of extravagant 
intermarriage, and it presupposes a capacity of conscious self- 
limitation which is directly opposed to the ideal of the eman- 
cipated average, in order to be a nobleman in this highest 
sense. At present very few are ripe for freedom, by far the 
majority are still men of the herd, and incapable of perfecting 
themselves beyond the limits of the community. Thus, where 
the old connections have been destroyed, they enter into new 
ones, which are justified much more superficially than those 
which have matured in the process of history. To-day the 
rich join hands: it was better when the noble-minded did so. 
I am becoming bitter. How should I not be, since I have 


1See as to the ultimate reason for the correlation of all living beings my 
lecture ‘Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung’ in the Leuchter, 1924 (Otto 
Reichl Verlag). 


CHAP. 49 KiviOcn oO 177 


to look on while the trend of events irresistibly drags down 
the type which ought to be the most noble? There are ap- 
pallingly few genuine aristocrats already among the bearers 
of the greatest historical names. It is in the nature of things 
that an organ which cannot act in accordance with its nature 
becomes degenerate. This takes place in two ways, the empha- 
sis may be laid on the word ‘accordance’ or on the word ‘act?: 
the rigid reactionaries degenerate because they do not 
exert themselves at all; the progressives do the same because 
they, where they can no longer live in accordance with their 
peculiarity, try their fortunes in different ways for which they 
lack direction because their inherited instincts fail. To-day 
most of the landed nobility have to live as merchants. As they 
are not merchants by nature, and can only be guided by con- 
siderations of utility, not by intuitive feeling in this profession, 
they lie, in the metaphysical sense, when they do business, 
which is expressed in appearance by the fact that they are often 
less gentlemanly in their dealings as men of business than 
professional tradesmen. AI! that lies in their blood is knightly 
honour, the specific morality of the tradesman is something 
strange to them; and they therefore belong, in their new career, 
only too often to a lower class than the representatives of old 
merchant families. The types of humanity are not interchange- 
able, and can only be transformed to a small degree. In this 
way, Japan offers the most instructive of all examples. In this 
country, modernity immediately followed upon the Middle 
Ages, the era of the economic outlook immediately succeeded 
the era of the Crusaders. What was the result? Among 
knights, the buyer and seller is always held in contempt, and 
contempt kills noblemindedness from the outset. Therefore, 
the Japanese merchants, compared with the Chinese, were typi- 
cally low-minded. The noblemen have proved their value as 
knights brilliantly enough in war. That the typically knightly 
attitude is still vital to-day, I myself have had considerable 
opportunity to observe; I have often been struck by the simi- 
larity between the Japanese and the Baltic noblemen: in both 
cases there is a Don Quixote-like contempt of money, in both 
cases there is a magnanimity and a largesse which is hardly 


178 JAPAN PART VI 


met with any more elsewhere. But to-day most of these 
Samurais are not in the position materially to continue their 
existence in the old way; to-day they must, in order not to 
starve, participate in the economic competition, and here they 
are not guided by any certain instincts. Thus they rely ex- 
clusively on their sense for business, and this is only far-sighted 
in so far as it works from a solid basis of character; the result is 
obvious to everybody: I have so far not met with one single 
white business man in the East who did not regard every 
Japanese as a low, vulgar and thoroughly unreliable fellow. 
While the medieval tragedy was being played upon the boards, 
the faces of all, even those of the Japanese who wore European 
dress, appeared to be transfigured; certain strings of their 
being were vibrating which modern life no longer touches. 
And these strings are the profounder, the fuller and purer 
ones—in Japan as everywhere else on earth. 


+ 


THE character of Kyoto differs from that of all the cities 
which I have visited so far in Japan: its character is that of a 
metropolis which summarises all the forms of life in the wide 
realm into one magnificent unity. I go to visit the sights: the 
monuments of court culture, of pompous vassal power, of the 
magnificently lavish sway of the prelates, and the memorials of 
that austere and manly warrior spirit, which has brought 
about the final rise of Japan; and I am amazed at the manifold- 
ness of the manifestations in which life expressed itself here 
once upon atime. What similarity existed between the exquis- 
itely cultured courtiers, with their feminine sensibility, their 
delicate artistic feelings, and the rough, masculine Samurais? 
Between the Amazon-like empresses of the old times, the 
great lady artists of the Middle Ages, to whom Japan owes 
the best of its literature, and the Spartan-minded spouses of 
the knights? Every one of these types can be regarded as a 
special species of humanity, and has always been judged as 
such. And if I compare the well-articulated organism of an- 
cient Japan with the uniformity of to-day, and think at the 
same time of the near future, when this process of levelling 


CHAP. 49 KYOTO 179 


will have become perfected, then once more a feeling of bitter- 
ness takes hold of me. The misconception that the removal 
of the social barriers could favour the differentiation of men 
is really too foolish! Of course it facilitates individual differ- 
entiation, but what does this signify in comparison with typical 
differentiation which it throttles from the beginning? Under 
the most highly individualised people it happens only excep- 
tionally that an individuality, as such, is valuable; conversely, 
the types which crystallise in the most impersonal nations are, 
without exception, the bearers of human values, which are lost 
when the boundaries between the types become blurred. Man 
happens to be a differentiating being, there is no blinking the 
fact; he becomes conscious of his peculiarity only in reference 
to what differs from him; for this reason, high culture flour- 
ishes only in aristocratic communities. The differences between 
individuals who substitute differences in type in democracies 
are too small, and, above all, too superficial, to be stimulating 
to the same degree. The Japanese illustrates these truths as 
no other people does. They are, as all connoisseurs affirm 
unanimously, markedly impersonal, they have remarkably little 
feeling for individuality. They lose in proportion as they 
depart from the possibility of typical manifestation. The 
courtier of long ago was refined as opposed to the crude 
Samurai, and the latter was manly and strong as opposed to 
the subtle Daimyo; the woman of birth was severe and self- 
controlled in the consciousness of her superiority towards the 
children of nature who acted as her servants. To-day the 
Japanese regard themselves more and more as equals, they 
strive, above all, to be ‘modern people.? And this makes them 
more banal every day... . 

But in Kyoto the psychic atmosphere of the old days still 
prevails, and the spirit of the residency still holds sway. I feel 
as I sometimes did in Versailles, when I strolled in the light of 
the October sun, through its semi-wild avenues. I feel as 
though I were a courtier; etiquette regulates all my impulses; 
semblance is highest reality to me, and formulas appear es- 
sential. And this constitution does not limit me: in fact here 
this very constitution brings about the greatest possible inner 


180 JAPAN PART VI 


freedom. In the Versailles of Louis XIV only the perfect 
courtier could be entirely genuine. In Kyoto it was similar. 
In its artificial society, supposedly controlled by puppet em- 
perors, ruled in fact by their favourites, contaminated by 
intrigue, only the servile courtier was quite in his element. 
But he appeared to be remarkably substantial. Thanks to the 
peculiar Japanese temperament, which unites in so strange a 
manner sensitivity, lack of imagination and matter-of-factness, 
the courtiers could be absolutely genuine. They were as 
genuine as the penguins, who spend their days in the mutual 
display of courtesy on the ice-fields around the southern pole. 


+ 


In the highest circles of Old Japan, interior decorations and 
the costumes of women were subject to successive changes in 
relation with the rotation of the seasons. No interior was 
ever attuned to summer while it snowed and stormed outside, 
no grande-dame of Japan would ever have worn a garment 
suggestive of chrysanthemums at the time that the wistaria 
blossomed. The idea is the same as the Chinese ‘harmony,’ 
only it is expressed here, not profoundly, but superficially, 
just as the painter seizes and reproduces the significance of 
things in their ‘coloured reflection’? (Goethe). The Japanese 
did not bother much about heaven; he has, instead, thanks to 
his marvellous feeling for nature, made his earth into a para- 
dise. I can well imagine that a dwarfed tree does not feel 
itself ill-treated as a tree trimmed in the French manner cer- 
tainly does: he probably feels grateful to his gardener, as he 
changes his nature without violence, in such a way that it seems 
perfectly suited to his surroundings. At any rate, every man 
of taste to whom the same thing happened would be grateful. 

The ‘meaning’ of this feeling for nature, as Laotse would 
put it, is the basic tone of all Asiatic philosophy of the world 
and of life. The Indians have expressed it in their philosophy, 
religion and music, the Chinese in the whole of their culture, 
the Japanese, above all, in the shaping of what is visible; in 
this respect they are thoroughly Asiatic. The whole East 
regards man as a component part of nature, and behaves accord- 


CHAP.49 KXY¥O3.0 181 


ingly, whereas it is characteristic of us that we deny our mem- 
bership. There is no doubt that the Eastern point of view is 
the more profound. An all-embracing religion and philosophy 
which denies nothing can only originate from the Asiatic atti- 
tude to the world, it alone makes a perfect social organisation 
possible in principle; only the man endowed with the Asiatic’s 
feeling for the world will possess taste in the highest sense. 
For what else is taste but clear consciousness of proportion? 
The man whose eyes have been trained in Japan will only rarely 
want to open them in Europe. How barbaric is our habit of 
overloading! How seldom does an object stand in the place 
which correlation appoints to it! How obtrusive our pictures 
are! And how rarely is a European aware that a room exists 
for the man, and not vice versa, that he, and not the curtain or 
the picture, is to be given his best possible setting! Even 
Japanese architecture achieves in the same way something more 
valuable than our modern method of building, no matter how 
insignificant their creations may be in other respects. A Japanese 
temple is designed in its setting, it cannot in fact be dissociated 
from it. And as this is done with mastery, and as every build- 
ing gives the effect of unity with its background, the general 
view is esthetically more satisfying than our buildings, which 
are mostly better in themselves. It is characteristic that the 
Japanese loses his taste as soon as he assumes European man- 
ners and European dress: they are alien to his inner nature, he 
cannot understand them in their own connection. And it is 
very significant, in the same way, that the temples are gener- 
ally very overloaded: they too do not exist for men, but for su- 
perlative beings, of whom he does not make clear mental 
images for himself. Accordingly men visit them only on fes- 
tive occasions, where the elated atmosphere anyhow demands a 
more gorgeous frame. To-day I attended the annual feast of 
the Nishi-Hongwanji temple. There the most extraordinary 
pomp was displayed. But that is just how, according to the 
Japanese view, religious festivals ought to be—essentially 
extraordinary performances—and for such purposes the gor- 
geously decorated, gold-shimmering and gaily lacquered tem- 
ples provide a framework of appropriate style. 


182 JAPAN PART VI 


Japanese gardens, however, are absolutely beautiful, they are 
the perfectly beautiful gardens, an expression of no less classical 
a spirit than Greek images of gods. Why do the Japanese 
dwarf their trees? Not from a preference for what is small in 
itself, but so that the tiniest piece of land shall reveal infinite 
perspective like a landscape by Millet. Wherever, as in the 
imperial park of Kyoto, there is space in plenty, the trees in 
the background have almost been allowed to touch heaven, 
and their impulses of growth have only been limited in propor- 
tion to their distance from the background, so that the same 
picture of infinite distance is achieved on a large scale which 
the pauper realises on a small one. And how infinitely more 
can be accomplished by intelligent penetration into the pecu- 
liarities of nature than by their violation! By means of some 
stones, a few plants and a little trickle of water, the artist con- 
jures beauties into an indifferent space, such as cannot be found 
in many famous sites. . . . While I rest in these magical gar- 
dens during the hot hours of the day, I am reading in the 
Jengi Mongagatari, that medieval novel which gives such a 
perfect picture of the life of the princes of Japan: this quality 
of refinement no court of the West has known; nor, probably, 
any court of China. What characterises this culture is a rela- 
tion which was only possible in Japan: between the animal- 
like intuition for sensuous phenomena and their extreme artis- 
tic elaboration. When Prince Jengi enjoyed the mood of a 
moonlit scene, he did not dream like a Persian poet: he was at- 
tentive like a beast of prey lying on the watch, but he felt what 
he observed simultaneously as an exquisitely sensitive zsthete. 


+ 


THE charm of this zsthetically most attractive of all coun- 
tries enmeshes me more and more. Here, the objects of the 
outer world take possession of me, as otherwise ideas in the 
realm of thought, and they modulate the mood of my soul until 
it continues to compose in their key of its own accord. 

Is it because in Japan I live altogether through the senses 
that I feel younger every day? That is probably the reason. 
We happen to be born into the world for this world, for the 
exploitation, not for the renunciation of earthly ability, and if 


CHAP. 49 KY OO 183 


we want to live at too early a stage beyond the realm of the 
senses we have to do penance. Once life has passed its earthly 
zenith, it fulfils itself more and more in an existence of a 
purely mental kind. So long as the curve on earth is still in 
the ascendant, the senses imperiously demand their right. The 
processes of nature do not allow themselves to be cut short. 

But this is not the only, nor the chief cause which raises the 
tone of my life so considerably in Japan: it is the unique satis- 
faction which a life in and with the senses offers one in the land 
of the Rising Sun. Here, as nowhere else on earth, externals 
are attuned to internals, nature to man, so that the possible 
impressions possess from the beginning a harmonious relation 
to the possible sensations; and here, as nowhere else, this har- 
monious relation is realised in the best objective rhythm. The 
number of such rhythms is not unlimited: just as combinations 
of the elements lead to enduring chemical compounds only in 
definitely limited numbers, just as the heavenly bodies can 
only be joined into a system subject to certain relations of 
weights and of distance from each other, so the maximum of 
beauty, satisfaction and happiness is also dependent on certain 
rhythmic relations. In objective art, especially in music, this 
state of things can easily be shown: the more classical a com- 
position, the more does it appear controlled by those very 
rhythms which, outside in the expanse of the sky, control the 
harmony of the spheres. In the case of subjective sensations, 
however, where objective proof cannot be brought, every one 
whose organisation is sufficiently delicate will have the same 
personal experience. I know no one who has really penetrated 
into the rhythmic gymnastics of Jacques-Dalcroze and has 
not experienced through and in it an incredible exaltation 
of life: these gymnastics realise the objective optimum in the 
rhythm of the play of human gestures. I know no artistically 
minded person to whom the beauty of a masterpiece does not 
appear as an objective absolute. And, last but not least, the 
happiness which two people can give to each other depends, 
in all cases, upon the degree of their physiological and psychic 
sympathy, that is to say, it depends on the relation in which 
the strings of their nature harmonise. Exactly in the same 


184 JAPAN PART VI 


sense, the relation in which objective culture in Japan stands 
to human subjectivity is a best possible relationship. Of 
course, one must have become a Japanese in order to experi- 
ence this optimum to the full; but in Japan one does become a 
Japanese; no assimilative mind escapes this transformation. 

And if he then notices that the foreign Far Eastern manifes- 
tation is beginning to appear, even to him, as an objective 
optimum, then he will also realise how little this style means 
as such. It is the relations within the conventions which make 
him happy; the same relations could also be represented in 
the Greek language of form. And the fact that in Japan he 
enjoys what is Japanese most, only proves how very appropriate 
this special style is to the ambiente. 

My thoughts wander back to China. No, the perfection 
which I have in my mind’s eye to-day is specifically Japanese, 
not Chinese, and even if each individually beautiful mani- 
festation was invented in the Middle Kingdom; the routine of 
this life is based upon consideration; but it is expressed in 
obedience to objective forms of politeness, irrespectively of 
what may be going on in the consciousness of others. I was 
told the story of a Chinese lady who came to call upon a Euro- 
pean lady, whom she estranged because, instead of bowing to 
her, she dropped her curtsy in the opposite direction, turning 
her back to her hostess in the process: her hostess should, ac- 
cording to etiquette, have been standing on the opposite (on the 
southern) side of the room; the fact that she did not actually 
stand there was a matter of indifference to the Chinese lady. 
In Japan it is just the living consideration which is developed 
to the extreme; nowhere else on earth does sensibility seem to 
be so delicately shaded. Thus, Chinese invention bears its 
finest fruit only here. In Japan the idea of harmony is em- 
bodied in the mobility of living appearance; nothing happens, 
except in harmonious proportion, nothing occupies any but 
the best rhythmical position. Thus gne feels well and happy 
wherever one turns. After all, most things all the world over 
depend upon trifles. Only one shade differentiates tactlessness 
from tact, one shade divides politeness from impertinence. 
The Japanese has the most developed sense for trifles. Thus, 


CHAP. 49 é KYO FO 185 


after what was great had been given him, he was able to 
achieve results which remained unattainable to a greater being. 

The reverse of all this—but I do not want to spoil my mood 
of happiness. Why should a man or a people possess all ad- 
vantages? The nations of this earth complement each other. 
Some play bass, the others treble; a few people strike the basic 
tones, many others sing the melody. Humanity is an orchestra 
of many voices; the philosopher listens to the symphony. And 
if he must travel in space in order to gain the impression of 
unity, this implies no more serious objection against the order 
of the world than does the fact that the unity of any single 
melody is only realised in the passage of time. 


+ 


I po not know myself any more: not merely because I spend 
hours pottering about among antiquaries and curio dealers— 
I am actually busy buying and thinking about interior deco- 
rations. This is quite an unusual state of affairs. Never, as far 
as I know, have I attached any weight to property, especially 
to the possession of things which please my eye. It is more in 
accordance with my personal requirements if that which is 
beautiful is where I can, but where I need not, see it, in the 
houses of friends or in public collections; if it is constantly 
before me, it disturbs me, and all the more so the greater its 
own merit is. Then I have to consider it, to adjust the style of 
my life to a work of art; above all, my imagination is not at 
liberty in such a presence. How am I to unearth thoughts 
without hindrance from unconscious depths, if the space before 
me is not empty, if my senses are caught up again and again 
in something perfect outside myself? It is true that things 
which are merely pleasing are not so restrictive in their effect; 
but then, I do not need them. I would, of course, mind it if 
the ladies I know did not make their surroundings as beauti- 
ful as possible, for when I am with them my consciousness is 
turned to the outer world, and suffers from any of its insuffi- 
ciencies; from my own surroundings I merely demand that 
they shall not enter upon my consciousness at all: that should 
be their perfection. But here, under the influence of Japan, 


186 JAPAN PART VI 


I am turning into an epicurean, into an amateur of art. Here, 
everything visible is designed for man; the whole of nature 
only seems like the frame of human life, every object is there 
for use, every work of art presupposes an observer. Thus it 
happens that even a man otherwise independent of the outer 
world feels oppressed and uncomfortable, if he is capable of 
impressions at all, so that any discord in Kyoto makes me think 
involuntarily how I could be esthetically more in harmony 
with my surroundings, and J live, in fact, in the belief that I 
would continue to have such wants at home. I have to laugh 
at myself. With a little less self-criticism I might almost per- 
suade myself that I am a connoisseur of art. This morning, 
at the opening of an auction, I watched Japanese experts 
examining porcelain. I am probably blind to what they notice, 
but it seemed to me at the moment, quite seriously, as if I 
too might join in the conversation about porcelain, and it really 
seems as if I had not judged wrongly on a number of occasions. 
This I owe entirely to the suggestion of my surroundings; by 
nature I lack every feeling for the arts and crafts. However, 
I am well content to have stood in the shoes of a man of taste, 
for a few moments at any rate, because in the process a new 
side of the Japanese temperament has become clear to me. 
Goethe remarks somewhere that the theatre had the double- 
sided peculiarity of making the audience imagine that they too 
were able to produce dramatic work. What is the cause of this? 
Apparently it is due to the fact that men do not give such close 
attention to most events as they do to the performance of a 
play; and that which has really been seen lies, regarded from 
the angle of the mind, on the same plane as that which has been 
invented. Thus, the spectator thinks involuntarily that he has 
created the drama of another man, or at any rate, as this is 
demonstrably not the case, he imagines that he is capable of a 
similar achievement. In just the same way, even a barbarian 
in artistic surroundings, at some time or another, arrives at the 
conclusion that he ‘really’ is a connoisseur of art, for in these 
circumstances he notices what otherwise he overlooks. This 
train of thought has, however, not yet reached its end: the edu- 
cation of attention for the purposes of observing certain things 


CHAP. 49 KYOTO 187 


develops the capacity to see them; in fact, it leads further: 
continued attention calls forth creative gifts. This then seems 
to me to be the key to the understanding of the artistic creative- 
ness of Japan. The Japanese are by nature not productive in 
the same way as the Chinese used to be in their earlier days; 
but they have eventually become creative because in idea imag- 
ination and technique, receptivity and production belong to 
one single psychic whole. A powerful imagination creates 
means of expression for itself; where technique is perfect, there 
spirit and significance become incarnate of their own accord; the 
perfect observer is ultimately surprised by original ideas. The 
Japanese possess two qualities by nature: they are incompa- 
rably acute observers, and virtuosos in all technical skill. By 
virtue of these qualities they have not only been able to make 
their own the achievements of all the peoples whom they 
wished to emulate—they have succeeded, without really having 
ideas, in presenting ideas, even ideas which none before them 
has produced. 


+ 


To what an astonishing extent I have already become a Japa- 
nese! ‘Their senses have become my own; I apply the stand- 
ards of their esthetic as a matter of course, I notice and regard 
a thousand things which I never noticed otherwise; I seem to 
have become completely transformed from a thinker into a 
visual man. And I am amazed at the wealth of the visible 
world. Until now I had often found that this world conceals 
rather than reveals; that reality, as seen by the eye, is poor by 
the side of that of the mind and of the soul. Now, however, I 
recognise that it is marvellously rich, that it only depends upon 
the talents of the observer how much it offers and means to 
him; just as much meaning can be manifested in the play of 
colours and lines as in the most intelligent structure of thought. 
But, of course, it is a meaning of a different kind. They say 
that the gods talk to each other in colours; this may well be; 
but then they talk of something else than we do. I do not 
know whether men who live continuously by their eyes are as 
conscious of this as I am; the visible world is a world by itself; 


188 JAPAN PART VI 


the experiences of a graphic artist do not possess a concrete 
common denominator with those of the thinker. Therefore, 
it means an absolute enrichment of my existence that for the 
moment I am able to perceive like a Japanese painter. 

For the moment—for this attitude will not last long. The 
possibility of being Japanese is certainly innate in me, just as 
everything natural is innate in all men; every one may, delib- 
erately or involuntarily, be, at various times, a tiger or a deer, 
a waterfall, an earthquake or a plant; it simply depends on the 
elements of his being which he stresses. But in the long run 
every individual is only capable of existence subject to the 
attitude which defines him as such; this attitude alone is a reli- 
able means of expression for what is profoundest in him; 
and for this reason, the entering into something too strange 
unfortunately seldom proves to be as productive as in theory 
it ought to be—it does not lead us whither we would. This 
afternoon, while I sat for hours on a wooded hill, among blos- 
soming azaleas, with the wide expanse of Lake Biwa in front of 
me, I experienced this once more myself. I assumed the 
nature of the visual man; I became absorbed in the pure form 
of plants; before long I was able to see them in the way in 
which Japanese painters see them, and the meaning of every 
line was revealed to me. But as I became more deeply concen- 
trated, their visibility disappeared; not absolutely, but in its 
own independent sense, with which alone art is concerned. I 
began to realise ever more clearly what is becoming a true 
reality for me more and more: the possibility of appearance. 
Once more I was in direct contact with that invisible power 
which conditions existence and its nature from within, which 
rules all the processes of growth and decay. And when light- 
ning flashes of reflection darted through my mind, I won- 
dered, as often before, why it is denied to me to have my 
personal centre in pure possibility, and why I cannot, when I 
actualise myself, sometimes be the whole, and sometimes noth- 
ing, and sometimes any single part of it. And my contempla- 
tion was followed, as usual, by sadness. It is tragic for one’s 
knowledge to be in advance of one’s ability. Why am I not 
a god? Only because I am wanting in physical strength; it 


CHAP. 49 | BYP OEG) 189 


is the available quantity of energy, and nothing else, which 
differentiates the metaphysician from God. If I possessed 
sufficient power, then my ideas would, of their own accord, 
become physical manifestations, and, as my thoughts wandered, 
one world would succeed another. As it is, I am not even able 
to be a Japanese as long as I wish; the limitations which I do 
not recognise in idea control me all the same. Every new 
manifestation ultimately unmasks the old Keyserling again, 
and this happens generally long before I have exhausted the 
possibilities of the manifestation in question. What is one to 
do? If my nature were purely that of an observer, I could 
at any rate deceive myself concerning the facts, as most mystics 
have done: I could not act so consistently, abide so continuously 
in thought in the realm of possibility, that I would lose the 
consciousness of my limitations, until the course of events really 
explodes them one day. But unfortunately I am much too 
active for such a condition to be possible for me. Nothing bet- 
ter is left to me than to educate the invincible Keyserling into 
so pliable an instrument that I at any rate do not need to waste 
any attention on his existence while I work. 


+ 


BEFORE I had seen a Japanese dancing festival I would never 
have dreamt that rhythms as perfect as those of Byzantine 
mosaics could be presented by living beings. The lute-players 
on the right, the drummers on the left, seated in identical atti- 
tudes, line the amphitheatre. They carry out identical move- 
ments in uniform time, and form together a living frieze of 
perfect rhythmic unity. And the Geishas, who performed 
their character dances sometimes on the stage, sometimes along 
the auditorium, produce the effect of angels in medieval 
pictures of paradise, of mere repetitions of an eternally con- 
stant symbol. On this occasion I felt more than ever: it is 
only in rhythmic stylisation that nature becomes completely 
herself; the richness of life is only fulfilled in the simplifying 
curve. I felt as though I was being enlarged, as though all 
inhibitions and barriers were vanishing; it was as though all 
impulse became resolved in blissful harmony. 


190 JAPAN PART VI 


The accompanying music did not sound beautiful to Euro- 
pean ears, but the performance itself was music. Here I 
realised, for the first time, that moving colours and lines are 
able to effect just what reverberations of tones can do. The 
European ballet is too superficial to cause such effects; the 
facial play of our musical dancers amounts to copying or 
interpretation, it is not a direct expression. In principle, that 
which Jacques-Dalcroze strives for should be able to embody 
the ideal, only I am afraid it will only do so partially, because 
our dancers, no matter how they are trained, remain conscious 
individualities; a European cannot forget that he is a ‘person- 
ality.? In Japan the ideal is actually realised, because the per- 
formers are Geishas; creatures born and trained to produce 
blissful moods without self-consciousness; to represent an ara- 
besque or an accompaniment selflessly; never to exist for and by 
themselves. It does not enter into the mind of the man who 
watches them that they possess individual souls. They are 
what they are supposed to represent—notes struck upon a 
string, patches of colour, mosaics; elements without a signifi- 
cance of their own. Blessed are the people who have thus hon- 
oured the Geisha! Instead of expelling her contemptuously, 
or using her only as a means of enjoyment, they have conse- 
crated her as priestess: thus, that which may be the lowest 
in itself takes part in the creation of the highest. The Geishas 
have the privilege and the duty of fostering the old traditional 
forms; thus, they are the guardians of the Holy of Holies. 
In performing the ceremonies and dances again and again 
which are the perfect expression of the soul of old Japan, they 
preserve this soul alive through all time. And only they, the 
loose, the light-hearted ones, are capable of doing this. None 
but this type of humanity can be elemental in the manner re- 
quired by ritual and ceremony, for only this type is, regarded 
metaphysically, selfless; Geishas alone exist relatively in the 
literal sense of the word, only they are literally without person- 
ality. Therefore they are able to achieve what more autono- 
mous types cannot do: they can represent to perfection what 
in figurative expression is above personality. 

The tea ceremony took place before the performance of the 


CHAP. 49 KYOTO 19! 


dance. It was a wonderful experience for me to observe what 
profound understanding simple folk brought to bear upon 
the complex ritual. So long as this feeling for form remains 
alive, Japan will not lose its soul. What is to happen, however, 
when, even in this way, it follows the example of the West? 
In Europe even the Pope no longer understands the profound 
significance of form, not to mention the kings and princes; the 
British nation alone represents a worthy exception up to the 
present day. There perfect common sense has led to the same 
result as artistic instinct has done in other cases: they know 
that form not only represents content, but actually creates it, 
and it translates this recognition into practice all the more 
energetically, the more the content in itself loses in power. 
To-day, when no one really believes any more in the divine 
right of kings, their original prestige is expressed all the more 
powerfully in externals, for the appearance reacts upon the 
heart. The more the ties between the various parts of the 
empire actually loosen, the more each part becomes individual- 
ised, the more does the government place the symbol in the 
foreground. Thus, the king, actually only one among other 
officials, endowed with power far inferior to his ministers, 1s 
surrounded, wherever serious matters are at stake, with a 
semblance of majesty, of which Shah Djehan might be 
envious. 

Such means, of course, are not efficacious any longer every- 
where. Englishmen are prepared to let form create in them- 
selves what the Germans, for instance, are not prepared to do. 
This does not prove that the Germans possess greater freedom, 
but that Englishmen possess more culture. Wherever the 
inner side of life is concerned, it is significance which creates the 
facts; in the significance with which a form is credited, a 
new and higher sphere of reality is revealed, and this form 
awakens consciousness even in the souls of those who would 
never have perceived it by themselves. This truth is still a 
matter of course to the Japanese: will it remain so? I fear the 
worst, because they do not understand it; they act in accord- 
ance with it without knowing what they do. Once they enquire 
after the meaning, which is bound to happen sooner or later, 


192 JAPAN PART VI 


it seems certain that they will give the wrong answer; they 
will hardly let pass, as positivists, what is not directly intelli- 
gible to their reason, and they will realise the meaning of 
symbolical truth with much greater difficulty than we, who are 
so much more mystically endowed (the Japanese regards the 
European in general as remarkably superstitious). 

To return once more to the institution of the Geishas 
(they are really an institution: their mastery in etiquette is 
patented, and the system has the Imperial sanction): our social 
reformers are horrified that such institutions still exist; if the 
Geishas really are not personalities, they think they ought to 
be educated to become personalities; it is said to be unworthy 
of a human being to be only an element. Great heavens! 
Most human beings gre nothing but elements, and can only 
attain their perfection as such, especially if they have Geisha 
natures. I do not want to set up the old Japanese society as 
ideal, but it is nevertheless true that its principle, in the given 
empirical circumstances, makes self-realisation possible for the 
elements in a far higher degree than our society does. And I 
am not thinking here only of the courtesans, who in Europe, 
thanks to our disgusting system, appear so much more de- 
graded than they do in Japan: I am thinking of all classes of 
society. Our ideal is the perfection of the individual; it is 
perhaps the highest. But it is another question as to which 
method is best suited to the attainment of this perfection. 
Most people, even in the West, are not individualised enough 
to become perfect by following their own impulses (this applies 
even to the Italy of the Renaissance period). And as the 
modern spirit of the age no longer favours the striving for the 
perfection of types, the individuals are becoming more inde- 
pendent, but in the same measure less distinctly marked than 
they used to be. This is seen most clearly in the case of women. 
It is, in accordance with her nature, more difficult for her than 
for a man to find her perfection in and through herself; the 
greatest women who have lived have grown to be what they 
were by devotion—to a man, to God, to an ideal. And now 
even the lowest want to be ‘altogether themselves.’ These 
foolish creatures do not understand that they would become 


CHAP. 49 . KYOTO 193 


themselves in a far higher degree if they professed the type 
proudly to which they belong and sought their perfection in it. 
For this form which has been marked by the wisdom of both 
history and nature, would help their individualities to a stronger 
realisation than the personal ideal, which is usually visual- 
ised only vaguely, and only rarely pursued with sufficient con- 
sistency. On what a far lower level are most modern women 
than those belonging to a past which is not remote! The high- 
est type of present-day Europe is embodied in the French 
woman of birth. For she alone is still educated so that she 
shall represent until representation has become reality. 
+ 

I HAVE now spent many a night in Japanese inns and tea- 
houses, and I have awakened many a fresh morning in their 
low rooms, strewn with mats. Japan at night is full of the most 
intimate charm. The outward picture of the streets does not 
bear comparison with the Chinese; they are uniform, dark and 
quiet, and the eye is attracted only rarely, as in China, by 
picturesque and popular scenes. The night life of Japan takes 
place beyond the streets. Here, behind paper walls, still per- 
ceptible from the outside like a play of shadows, gay from the 
hour of twilight until the late morning, night in, night out, 
the sounds of lutes and the bright laughter of girls reverberates 
out into the street. 

How full of atmosphere were those nights in the country 
inns, where I rarely succeeded in snatching an hour of unin- 
terrupted sleep, because the troops of pilgrims below and next 
door never tired of chatting and laughing! How full of at- 
mosphere were those late hours in the town, where I sought re- 
laxation from the efforts of the day in out-of-the-way quarters, 
listening to the chirruping song of the Geishas, or beholding 
the artistic mime of gaily painted children! How full of at- 
mosphere just those things are here which lack this quality so 
much in Europe! It is true that Flaubert asserts: a1 manque 
quelque chose 4 celui qui ne Sest jamais réveillé dans un lit sans 
nom, qui na pas vu dormir sur son oreiller une téte qwil ne 
verra plus; but he can only have referred to those terrifying 


194 JAPAN PART VI 


experiences whose zenith is reached in the danse macabre, for in 
the life of European courtesans the charm of loveliness is miss- 
ing which genuine delight possesses. They are despised, they 
seem embittered in so far as they are not dull animals by 
nature; they are too conscious, too full of wariness, to be really 
cheerful, therefore their mirth seems aggressive; and their 
love stands, no matter how great their art may be, always in 
the sign of baseness. In Japan, baseness seems unknown, 
even to the lowest wench. Here all femininity is bent on 
charm, and charm is educated in them as an end in itself. And 
since the women do not see anything dishonouring in selling 
themselves to a strange man for money, and the man sees 
nothing shameful in visiting these pleasure houses, an atmos- 
phere of harmless cheerfulness prevails in these establishments, 
just as, in Europe, among children round the Christmas tree. 
It is instructive to watch the Europeans who visit a Japanese 
brothel for the first time. At first their features wear that ugly 
expression which appears on the face of every man who em- 
barks upon the path of vice; but this expression does not last 
even on the faces of the coarsest and bluntest. They soon be- 
come as harmlessly cheerful as the girls, and they soon lose 
consciousness of the fact that, according to the ideas of their 
own country, they are marching along an evil road. Here one 
can gauge the truth of the saying that nothing makes the pure 
impure. It is a matter of course to the Japanese that sexual 
needs are satisfied, they see nothing ugly in the sexual act; the 
girls who practise the profession of indiscriminate love of their 
neighbour do not deem it dishonourable to themselves. And 
as they think and feel this way, there is not only nothing impure 
or ugly which clings to them—the visitor takes a reflection of 
their purity from the brothel home with him. How infinitely 
lower are our typical sensations in these matters compared 
with that of the Japanese! It is, of course, evil in itself that 
there are prostitutes and a demand for them. However, this 
state of affairs will never be abolished altogether; seeing the 
constitution of human nature, no attempt to suppress sexual 
intercourse other than that of marriage will succeed, and every 
evil condition which is removed is replaced by a new one, which 


CHAP. 49 KYOTO 195 


is often worse. Is it not better, then, to meet this evil, as in 
Japan, by removing its evil character? I am well aware that 
this too has evil effects, just as everything in life leaves some 
evil behind it. But as men before marriage will never lead a 
continent life, and as their polygamous instincts will never 
become extinct, since women will always be born into the 
world who can only lead and be happy in the life of the 
courtesan: is it not more desirable to meet the actual state of 
affairs by an attitude which does not make it worse than it 
already is? In Japan there is nothing to prevent a wench from 
retaining a pure soul; therefore, she need not poison the man 
who possesses her. In Japan there is a way back to respectable 
existence from the house of pleasure. In Japan the end of 
those is not necessarily hopeless whose possibility of existence 
seems to depend on the freshness of their youth. The courte- 
san’s profession is officially recognised. It is respected in its 
way like every other profession. Like every other, it is an 
exclusive whole on the one hand, and, like every other, it is, 
on the other hand, dependent upon metabolic assimilation. 
It even has an official duty which endows it with that specific 
self-consciousness which no profession can dispense with. I 
have already written of the privilege which the Geishas possess, 
of keeping alive the soul of Japan by the preservation of 
the tradition of dancing, acting and playing. More than one 
brothel seems to have imposed upon itself a similar ideal task, 
which is honoured correspondingly: in many of these, the 
highest traditions of style and culture which have been handed 
down are fostered. One of these houses in Kyoto belongs to 
the historical monuments. It has stood there for centuries, 
managed by the original dynasty. The great men of the 
country used to frequent it, in order to forget their worries in 
cheerful company, or else in order to hold weighty confidential 
conferences in secret. Precious mural paintings of famous 
masters decorate the rooms, each one of which bears a name, 
like those of the royal castles of England. The most exquisite 
etiquette predominates among the inmates. Nowhere are the 
ladies better educated, nowhere do they wear more tasteful 
garments or speak a choicer language; they preserve the tradi- 


“1096 JAPAN PART VI 
tion of the courtly style. And this merit is recognised by the 
state in so far as they have the right to lead the train during 
the Imperial New Year’s festival. 

The Japanese attitude to sexual questions is, within the limits 
to which my observations are confined to-day, not lower but 
higher than our own. The existing reality no doubt does not 
describe the highest possible embodiment of the ideal—far 
from it—but the ideal as such is a higher one. In significance 
I do not know a better attitude than the Japanese. And, in 
fact, our efforts at reform gravitate automatically towards the 
Japanese ideal, no matter how little our pioneers would like 
this to be true. ‘Immorality’ is to be extirpated, the attempt is 
attended by little success, but in the process something better 
is attained: the fallen women are regarded with more kindly 
eyes; everything possible is done to raise the self-conscious- 
ness of the courtesan; the hopeless fate which inevitably 
awaited unmarried mothers in former days awaits them less 
and less. What else does this mean but that even Christian 
humanity is beginning to recognise that a natural evil can only 
be disposed of by removing its nature as far as possible? The 
fallen girl who is not ashamed of her fall does not need to 
descend on the ladder of human beings. It is better to create a 
world in which everything negative is transmuted to positive 
qualities, rather than to moralise. Every manifestation can 
mean something positive *; it rests with us to bring about such 
interpretation. ‘The new significance of the old facts thereupon 
produces new and better facts out of itself. . . . 


+ 


I pick up the thread of yesterday’s observations. That 
Chinaman who asserted that the real reason why the European 
professes the ideal of chastity is their immense brutality com- 
pared with the Asiatics was not so wrong after all; the Euro- 
peans, he claimed, had to have an ideal which is in direct oppo- 
sition to their real nature, whereas the gentler, generally 
vegetarian and therefore less animalic inhabitants of the East 


1The proof that we are absolutely free fundamentally is the chief contert 
of my book Schépferische Erkenntniss, Darmstadt, 1924 (Otto Reichl Verlag). 


CHAP. 49 | Kiy O78.0O 197 


could profess a more natural attitude without danger, It is 
really true: in the East even the abnormal individual is hardly 
so brutally sensual as the average European; where the spirit 
of the age does not create artificial barriers, the atmosphere of 
Europe is sensually provocative to a degree which strikes 
every one who has been away from it for a time as pathologi- 
cal; it is not too much to assert that the atmosphere at a dal 
blanc in France is more sultry than that in a Japanese brothel. 
There is nothing in the European woman, from her openwork 
stockings to the purity and innocence which she displays, which 
is not calculated, in the subtlest manner, to provoke the desire 
of the man. Every extra garment which she puts on acts as an 
additional inducement to strip her of it. And since our social 
culture, whatever people may say, owes its peculiar character 
to the part played by women in it, the result is an accentuation 
of the erotic of the whole of existence. Let no one suppose that 
this is the consequence of the more liberal attitude to matters 
of love which is continually gaining more prominence of late: 
negation and affirmation point psychologically always to the 
same thing; the prudery of the puritan means exactly the same 
as the cynicism of the libertine. This is not true to such an 
extent that, as my Chinese friend remarked quite correctly, our 
profession of the ideal of chastity is in reality the proof of our 
boundless sensuality. 

His further assertion that we need the ideal of chastity in 
order to control ourselves at all is of course applicable only 
partially simply because nothing increases the seductive effect 
of love more than the presupposition of its sinfulness; yet his 
thesis contains more truth than one might suppose. Among 
Frenchmen, in whose case erotic activity meets with the small- 
est psychic resistance, on the one hand more honesty, and to 
this extent more purity, predominates than among Englishmen 
and Germans, and they possess a culture of the sensuous which 
cannot live where its existence is purposely ignored; on the 
other hand, the erotic plays such a part among them that one 
may ask the question whether a little more hypocrisy and bar- 
barism is on the whole not less harmful than an attitude to love 
which, just because it corresponds exactly to a given nature, 


198 JAPAN PART VI 


places greater obstacles in the path of its ennoblement. The 
same applies to a lesser extent to Catholic Germany and Aus- 
tria. The northern Germanic races are certainly not less sensu- 
ous than those previously referred to; and where they seem to 
be so this is due to a lesser degree of differentiation, not to the 
weakness of their impulses. But since, thanks to their Prot- 
estant inheritance, a consciousness of sin generally plays its part 
when they love, so that even those least fettered by prejudice 
only dare in exceptional cases to let themselves go altogether, 
they behave better on the whole to begin with than corresponds 
with their nature, and they really become better in the long 
run because education changes their disposition. Brutality is 
commuted into tension. To this extent it is undoubtedly true 
that it is good for us to believe in the sinfulness of cohabitation. 

There is no better illustration of the physical and spiritual 
blindness which characterises most travellers than the view 
which they have imparted to the West concerning the sensu- 
ality and lasciviousness of the Asiatics compared with Chris- 
tians: the precise opposite is true. No one would accuse 
animals, which do not know any psychic inhibitions, of sensu- 
ousness in the evil sense. In the same way the people of the 
Fast are non-sensual compared with us Westerners; and they 
are less sensual moreover in so far as their instincts are much 
less brutal than our own. In all probability they copulate 
relatively more in the East; in the given climatic circumstances 
this is natural. Among some nations—especially the Chinese 
and the Indians—the Ars Amandi is developed to a high 
degree, but the facts as such are not decisive: what counts is the 
significance attributed to them. And the erotic means much 
less to the Oriental than it does to us. It isa matter of course 
to him that he has sexual requirements, a matter of course that 
he satisfies them; and since this is so they hardly occupy his 
consciousness. Once more: how infinitely less sensuous is the 
atmosphere of an Eastern brothel than that of a European 
ball! If among us a woman merely shows her shoe it means 
more than when a Japanese lady strips herself; the most highly 
cultured ladies of our great capitals are more aggressive in 
their intercourse with men than a prostitute would ever dare 


CHAP. 49 KY ORO 199 


to be inthe East. And what if I should think of India! With 
what wonderful wisdom has this people solved the sexual 
question, how wisely, especially from the point of view of 
spiritual progress, with which it is concerned so much more 
seriously than sanctimonious Christianity! There they never 
attempt to violate nature because they have known for cen- 
turies, what Freud has only discovered recently, that repressed 
desires are more corrupting in their effects than the most evil 
which are confessed freely. In India monastic tendencies are 
looked upon askance in every one who does not seem destined 
to become a Yogi; before he is a grandfather, the normal ex- 
pression of natural instincts is not repressed but facilitated; 
all the barriers are lacking which the presupposition of the 
sinfulness or ugliness of love creates. In their place other 
barriers are erected by the supposition of love’s sanctity. Love 
is regarded as divine in itself so that erotic images in India 
never belong to pornography but to iconography. Moreover, 
in every individual case love is specially sanctified. The marital 
relationship is interwoven with so many religious ideas that its 
sexual element appears thoroughly spiritualised, and precisely 
that which in Christendom is regarded as a concession to the 
sinful flesh becomes a means of spiritual progress. Even 
intercourse with prostitutes is sanctified where it seems inevi- 
table (which is the case to a far smaller degree in India, where 
every one marries early). The penitents who have taken the 
oath of chastity are not always altogether free from the fetters 
of sensuality. If they suppress these artificially, the danger 
exists that their imagination, instead of becoming ever purer, 
becomes ever dirtier, as in the case of St. Anthony. To avoid 
this, they satisfy their passions, as if they were making a sacri- 
fice, by employing courtesans who surrender themselves, on 
their part, for the sake of God. The nature of facts is every- 
where determined by the significance with which they are 
credited: thus, no matter how sophisticated this interpretation 
may be, as long as it is done in good faith, the relapse into Na- 
ture’s hands does not become fettering to the spirit thirsting for 
freedom. The outcome of all this is that, in India, with the 
single exception of the princely courts, an atmosphere of non- 


200 JAPAN PART VI 


sensuality dominates which alone makes it intelligible why 
philosophising and religious meditation lead there to such 
marvellous results. The meaning of all restriction of sexual 
life is solely that it shall not play a greater part in the whole 
expenditure of energy than is its due by nature. And an hyper- 
trophy of the sexual factor, which can certainly lead to real 
poisoning, is prevented more than by all repression, by assur- 
ing and justifying the normal expression of this impulse. 
Among us this happens only in marriage. It will be an eternal 
source of glory to the East that it has understood how to carry 
out the same regulation outside wedlock, so that an equally 
clean atmosphere prevails in brothels as in a well-conducted 
Western family. For this is actually the case. No matter how 
many facts people may adduce to prove Oriental immorality— 
they prove nothing and can prove nothing, because it is the 
significance on which alone everything depends, and Japanese 
laxity means about the same as the chastity of frigid English- 
women. 

This beautiful system is not applicable among us. Not be- 
cause we are better, but because we are too brutal on the one 
hand, and, on the other, too biased by the ideas of Christian 
asceticism, and, above all, because we are too matter-of-fact; 
to us, facts seem more significant than their meaning. But we 
are, nevertheless, tending in the opposite direction away from 
prejudice. Just at present the babble of the beauty of love as 
such, of living a full life, of the right of every woman to the 
joys of motherhood, is a little exaggerated; but if the tradi- 
tional barriers are rejected, lock, stock and barrel, as prejudices, 
this only means the normal stormy phase preparatory to the 
expert and liberal attitude of the future. There is no doubt 
that marriage will be regarded less and less as a conditio sine 
qua non for having children; the fact of virginity will be less 
and less decisive in regard to the honour or dishonour of a girl; 
women, like men, will be able to follow their personal laws 
more and more freely. The old forms of social life will not 
become extinct for this reason, they will continue to exist just 
as before, in fact they will hardly suffer quantitatively. Only 
other forms will be regarded as normal too, just as the main 


CHAP. 49 KY O TO 201 


sign of achieved progress in culture is the general fact that 
man needs to reject ever fewer forms of life in order to regard 
his particular existence as justified. 


+ 


THERE can only be one opinion about Japanese women on 
the part of any one who has a little feeling for style, that is 
to say, on the part of any man who does not demand the 
performances of a hippopotamus from a butterfly: the Japanese 
woman is one of the most perfect, one of the few absolutely 
accomplished products of this creation. I do not wish to under- 
take to describe her advantages in detail: this has often been 
done by a master hand. Here, too, it would be difficult for me 
to be objective; the atmosphere of Japanese femininity is so 
sympathetic to me that I have hardly become aware of her 
disadvantages. It is really too delightful to behold women 
who are nothing but gracefulness; who pretend nothing but 
what they are, who do not want to show off anything but what 
they can really do, whose heart is cultivated to the extreme. 
At the bottom of their souls there are not too many European 
girls who want anything more and anything else than their 
sisters in the Far East—they want to please, they want to be 
femininely attractive, and everything else, including intellectual 
interests, is a means to an end for them. How many of those 
who apparently have only mental aspirations would not breathe 
a sigh of relief if they could disregard this circuitous means of 
charm, which it is difficult for them to dispense with in their 
world, and present themselves as the Japanese women do! But 
this is just what they would succeed in with difficulty, what 
those who attempt it fail in. The modern girl is already too 
conscious to be perfect in a naive form, too knowing for an 
existence of pure gracefulness, above all, she is too rich in her 
nature to be easily perfected at all. In lovableness no mod- 
ern Western beauty can match herself with a well-educated 
Japanese lady. 

The zsthetic value is surely not the only one which is in 
question, and it can only be regarded as a highest value where 
the form implies the fulfilment of all existing content, as in the 


202 JAPAN PART VI 


case of the best types of Old China. This is not so in the case 
of the Japanese woman; she cannot be taken seriously as a 
personality, and to this extent those people are right who 
place her beneath the European woman. On the other hand, 
it should be remembered that any perfection is better than 
none at all. No matter how perfect many European women 
are, whose type belongs to past ages—I do not know a single 
one among modern women who signifies more than a hasty 
sketch of her specific ideal. Therefore, for this age I must 
give the palm to the lady of Japan. 

The Japanese lady whom I have in my mind will also belong 
to the past ere long, just as the European grande-dame does 
already. No esthetically sensitive man will envisage this fate 
without melancholy. With her, one of the sweetest charms on 
earth will pass away, and nothing of equal value will replace 
her soon, no matter how much effort is expended in this 
direction. The European woman undoubtedly holds a higher 
position in life than the Japanese; more possibilities are open 
to her, more traits of her being are developed, and our family 
life in particular is, in idea, much higher than that of Asia. 
But what especially the Japanese forget generally is that the 
advantages of our condition exist chiefly im abstracto, and that 
the value of abstract entities depends entirely on the extent to 
which they are appropriate to the concrete; the better system 
does not necessarily produce a better reality. On the contrary, 
it destroys reality only too easily. The Japanese woman ap- 
pears perfect as she is or was; where the state of her con- 
sciousness corresponds to her condition, she is precisely as 
happy as the American; she is, moreover, according to her 
advantages, the direct product of the prevailing circumstances. 
If these change, the advantages will disappear in the process. 
Whether, by way of compensation, the Japanese woman will 
gain what she has lacked hitherto, is all the more questionable, 
as our women are not yet nearly so advanced that one can say 
that they deserve thoroughly their new and wide scope. 

Every definite condition has a positive effect upon life: this 
sentence possesses axiomatic validity; positive in the sense 
that it brings about definite manifestations which no other 


CHAP. 49 NOY Onin) 203 


condition makes possible. Some of these manifestations are 
desirable, others undesirable, in the absolute sense none is 
perfect, because everything definite is simultaneously limited. 
What, however, must never be overlooked is that the advan- 
tages imply something much more positive than any failings. 
In the negative direction nature does not seem to have a great 
many possibilities open to her. On the one hand, what is in 
the descendant is preserved with difficulty and cannot be 
strengthened by heredity; on the other hand, negative quali- 
ties deserve their description also in so far as they bring about 
degeneration, and for this reason all types converge towards 
their lowest level; existences which have met with failure or 
misfortune appear similar everywhere at all times. On the 
higher regions, however, there seems to be no limit to the 
possibilities of variety. Just imagine for once the wealth of 
diverse qualities which in difficult circumstances change has 
called into existence in men: life which is in the ascendant 
makes great headway everywhere; in correlation to changing 
circumstances new forms of beauty blossom again and again, 
and each beauty was possible only once subject to special 
circumstances which never occur again. Thus, the perfection 
of the Japanese woman is the direct product of her position in 
life, which she has occupied for centuries; whatever may be 
said against this position—we owe to it the Japanese woman as 
she is. How miserable is the argument: she deserves a better 
fate, since she is so charming! One never deserves what robs 
one of one’s beauty. No matter what immeasurable advan- 
tages new circumstances may possess im abstracto—the feminine 
type of the past will not continue among them, and Japan 
will hardly produce a new one equal in value to the old, least 
of all one which corresponds to the latest European ideal, 
since the given limits of body and soul are too small. The 
idea of progress can perhaps be represented in the form of a 
straight line: real progress, in so far as it is susceptible of proof, 
takes the form of an agitated and frequently broken curve; it 
breaks off again and again because every human type is, as a 
rule, capable of only one kind of perfection. 


204 JAPAN PART VI 


One word more in connection with the much decried laxity of 
Japanese women in erotic matters. It seems monstrous to a 
European that a girl sells her purity in order to fulfil other 
duties. This must certainly not be understood in the sense 
that the Japanese woman is the ideal being who sacrifices her 
highest for the sake of something objectively still higher 
(although the lack of egoism she has been brought up to is so 
great that her behaviour often creates the impression of the 
profoundest metaphysical knowledge; the Geisha often reminds 
one of a saint to the point of deception). No, purity really 
means less to her than it does to European women. All 
the peoples of the East regard concession to natural impulses 
as a matter of course; if these impulses are curbed, it is done 
from external motives; they lack our inner inhibitions. But 
here I ask: is the European ideal of purity really so lofty? Its 
historical explanation lies in the early Christian ascetic atti- 
tude, according to which sexual intercourse is a sin, and this 
attitude is false; its lasting cause is to be found, as far as I can 
see, in purely utilitarian considerations: the virginity of girls 
is, on the one hand, a concession to, on the other, a speculation 
on, the egoism of the world of men. In and by itself nothing 
is normally further removed from woman than to idealise vir- 
ginity: for her, surrender is much rather the ideal, and must 
be so, since the race-instincts predominate in her conscious- 
ness. If virginity really should represent a highest quality, 
then this trend of thought leads straight away to an apotheosis 
of selfishness. One may idealise as much as one pleases: 
woman’s fight for her purity @ tout prix is nothing but self- 
assertion—and in this connection there is hardly a doubt that 
the Japanese woman who sells herself to a brothel in order to 
make it possible for her brother, by her earnings, to fight for 
his country, is the higher being. The Europeans would take a 
different view if their sensibilities were more delicate: they 
only rarely know how to differentiate between purity in the 
sense of loyalty and purity in the sense of virginity (as a phys- 
ical fact). In the first sense the Japanese woman is inferior to 
no European woman: there are no more chaste women than 
she. And if, in the second sense, her ideas are more lax— 


CHAP. 50 . ISE 205 


should this not lead us to deduce more certain instinct and 
more impartial thinking rather than immorality? Do not our 
best men and women begin to think more and more in the 
Japanese way? One should compare our ideas of decency with 
the Japanese view. Our women go to a ball almost nakedly, 
with the manifest intention of being provocative, but they 
would die of shame if a stranger surprised them in their bath. 
The Japanese woman shows herself naked without shame to 
all the world in her bath, but she would not dream of dressing 
herself provocatively on a festive occasion: is it not obvious 
that everything depends on the intention? . . . Which attitude 
is the profounder, the more pure? .. . 


50 
ISE 


I TARRY near the holiest place of the Shinto cult, at the temple 
of Amaterasu O-Mikami, the divine woman-ancestor of the 
imperial house. How much more atmosphere there is in this 
simple thatched block-house building, which is erected afresh 
every twenty years, than in the gold-laden Buddha temples! 
Here the best spirit of Japan has its sanctuary. It is the spirit 
of simplicity, purity, loyalty, of sacrifice for emperor and 
country, but also the spirit of boldness, daring and knightly 
adventure; the spirit of the Japanese as it sees itself in the 
mirror of its own idealism. Every pilgrim who approaches 
this sanctuary is overcome by this spirit; it takes possession of 
him, raises him, enlarges him, lifts him up above his petty 
ego, now he feels himself to be at one with Japan, the immortal 
empire. I too am seized by this spirit. From the depths of my 
consciousness feelings rise up which I hardly know and with 
which I am yet familiar. They form themselves into a new 
soul, 2 soul similar to that of a Greek of early antiquity. Yes, 
of course, I am only a member in the unending chain of life, of 
course I am one with all those who came before me; of course, 
my mind is rooted, not in myself, but in that which is above the 
individual, in the race from which I spring, which I embody, 


206 JAPAN PART VI 


and which it is my duty to continue. And if I seek for a symbol 
of this superindividual reality, which I feel so clearly and yet 
find so difficult to determine, then I am led back, as a matter 
of course, to the founder of my line, the distant ancestor to 
whom all later life owes its existence. It is he who animates 
all his progeny, it is he who continues to act in me; I owe him, 
before all others, reverence, love and gratitude. And as I think 
of him in adoration, the noblest emotions are awakened in my 
soul. I want to rival him, the great-hearted hero, I want to be 
worthy of him. He partook of all possible perfection, he was 
far greater even than I can imagine him. I cannot serve him 
better than by striving towards the highest, and thus all ideal- 
ism in me becomes an impulse towards cult. How foolish to 
smile upon the worship of ancestors as superstitious! Un- 
doubtedly it characterises an early stage, but this worship ex- 
presses, where it is genuine and alive, a consciousness of reality 
such as only the highest religiosity expresses on higher natural 
levels. It is really true that man is inwardly connected with 
everything which was before him and will be after him; the 
primitive man who is near to nature is more conscious of this 
fact than the late-comer.* On a higher plane only woman 
knows this in whose consciousness the original relations of life 
continue; she alone still feels herself to be directly at one with 
her race; her intellect is rarely independent enough to suffocate 
her natural feeling. And then the heirs of an old tradition are 
aware of it, the ancient nobles, who for centuries, from father 
to son, have lived on their estates and become a very part of 
them, whose mind is consciously rooted in the superindividual: 
here, feelings of responsibility and pride see to it that the 
original spirit is preserved. The consciousness of women and 
of noblemen is not more superficial, it reaches lower down 
than that of uprooted intellectuals. It is true that their pro- 
fundity is only one kind of profundity, that of Nature; the 
consciousness of unity in the man who reveres his ancestors 
does not reach beyond her, but where the soul is still tied 
physiologically, no direct consciousness of Atman is possible. 


1] have developed this trend of thought in my Unsterblickkeit, 3rd ed., 
Darmstadt, 1920. 


CHAP. 50 ISE 207 


In the same way, the mental images in which consciousness 
of reality is embodied are rarely profound: but it cannot be 
expected of primitive men that their thoughts should be of 
equal value with their intuition. For this reason the rational- 
istic observer rarely finds the forms of ancestral cults to his 
taste, especially those of Japan, whose content of ideas is 
hardly intelligible. The Japanese is so unfitted for thought, 
he has so little feeling for the abstract, he experiences so little 
annoyance at intellectual insufficiency, that it seems to be a 
hopeless attempt really to comprehend his national cult. This 
is, judged from the outside, a curious mixture of veneration of 
ancestors and nature, of magic and of point @honneur, of cus- 
tom and aspiration for the highest, of crude superstition and 
primitive sense for reality; if a Japanese explains that the ven- 
eration of the Mikado is based upon the fact that his ancestors 
have ruled over all their ancestors, this is no explanation, 
hardly a commentary: it is a mere presentation of fact, which 
will never be understood by the man who does not know some- 
thing similar from his own experience. Nevertheless, the 
veneration of the Mikado is an extreme of profundity, it really 
implies a supreme metaphysical experience. ‘The specific ap- 
pearance is simply an expression, and one appropriate only to 
the Japanese, but for them it is adequate as no other expression 
could be. Lately, a Shinto shrine was unveiled in Tokyo in the 
bacteriological institute for Robert Koch. It is highly improb- 
able that any of the professors and students, all of whom are 
presumably agnostics, assumed that Koch had become a god; 
not many perhaps believed in his continued existence after 
death. But the erection of a temple and the institution of a 
cult according to the Shinto ritual seemed to all of them the 
most appropriate expression of the veneration for the great 
scientist. 

The Government is very wise in encouraging the resuscitation 
of the Shinto cult to the best of its power: it awakens, like no 
other, the profoundest reverberations of the Japanese soul, or 
it leads them, where they exist, to expression. Basil Hall 
Chamberlain has recently pointed out that Shintoism, as it 
exists as the state-religion to-day, is a new invention; he shows 


208 JAPAN PART VI 


that for a thousand years Buddhism was the Japanese religion, 
and how what is taught to-day as the original faith is an arti- 
ficial fabrication. ‘The facts have probably been determined 
correctly, but not their significance! It was only possible to 
introduce an artificial product in less than fifty years as the 
inherited faith, because its form was appropriate to the inner- 
most life of the Japanese soul; if an attempt had been made 
to establish Christianity thus, the attempt would never have 
succeeded. I too am of the opinion that the special mani- 
festations of cult and faith are the inventions of the priests; 
somebody must have invented them. But where they suc- 
ceeded in introducing their inventions, these inventions always 
gave the best possible expression to a general tendency. Yes, 
the Government is very wise in supporting and encouraging 
the Shinto religion by every means; and the Government un- 
doubtedly knows why it does so. Japan is in the not undanger- 
ous position of a decidedly unindividualised, impersonal people, 
which has surrendered itself unconditionally to the influence 
of a civilisation which is based on the inner assumption of 
extreme individualisation. Its external side can only do it 
good; this has already been brilliantly proved by Japan. But 
if its spirit takes possession of the Japanese at too early a stage, 
then evil awaits them. They are not yet far enough for every- 
body to act by his own initiative in the spirit of the whole; 
their metaphysical knowledge has no other means of expression 
than that which passes through the physiological feeling for 
cohesion. If this people loses its primitive group-consciousness, 
its self-consciousness in the sense of the cité antique, then the 
cohesion is destroyed. All the Japanese in whom the spirit 
of old Japan (Yamato damashii) does not live any more, are 
repulsively superficial. 


CHAP. 51 MYANOSHITA 209 


51 
MYANOSHITA 


Fie the first time since I am in Japan pictures of the Hima- 
layas rise up in my mind. While I am high up in a valley, 
dreaming in front of a torrent which pours over steep rocks 
through luxuriant growth down to the level, I have to think of 
the mountain forests through which I roamed at one time 
with such delight. Here too the frame which encloses it all is 
magnificent by itself: the heights round about me are bare and 
wild, interspersed with steaming, sulphurous springs; the 
snow-clad peaks of Fuji beckon across the tops of the hills in 
the foreground; dark pine forests cover the lower slopes. And 
even there charm is not lacking: the luxuriance of the vegeta- 
tion again and again creates hidden arbours where nothing robs 
the fern-clad springs of their idyllic character. Why is it, 
then, that I nevertheless experience no sensation of grandeur? 
The fault lies with the cunning little men who have impressed 
their peculiarity upon this country: their understanding of 
nature is so inordinately great that they have subjugated their 
surroundings esthetically. Just as a single patch of colour 
can determine and change the meaning of a picture, so the 
Japanese, by deliberately inserting his particular existence into 
surrounding nature, has transferred the keynote of the latter 
so completely into himself that what is great now merely 
seems to fill out what is small. In the process, grandeur is 
expelled from the world. 

The capacity of the Japanese for recognising, understanding, 
absorbing and recreating the great in the diminutive, is, of 
course, seen from the angle of the absolute, something very 
great indeed. His exquisite feeling for nature means the same 
as the metaphysical sense of the world in the Indian or among 
us, therefore only a fool can see a failing in his case in its non- 
existence. One can even go further: what does the mystic 
mean when he asserts that his soul enters into infinity? Not 
that the drop disappears in the ocean, but the reverse, that the 
sea is absorbed by a drop—and that is what Japanese art 


210 JAPAN PART VI 


achieves in its sphere and with its particular means. But this 
consideration does not alter the fact that there is no room for 
grandeur within the Japanese realm of possibilities; it may be 
striven for, but it is never attained, simply because that which 
is small can never be grand in effect. When a nation of ants 
defends its ant-heap with such contempt of death as may never 
be found among men, we are full of admiration, but it does 
not seem great to us; everything depends upon the proportions 
of the fundamental correlation. In the case of the Chinese, 
every single thing points back to the Tao; correspondingly, 
even chinoiserie has heaven as a background. In Japan every- 
thing remains confined within the frame of human life, and 
Japan, not the universe, is the highest synthesis. For this 
reason, the sobbing girl who faces death for the sake of her 
lover produces a wonderfully vital impression, just as the stern 
Samurai who commits suicide from motives of an injured sense 
of honour; all intimate tragedies are within the picture. Hero- 
ism on a great scale extends beyond the frame. 

The importance of quantity should not be underestimated. 
Once we descend from the level of the absolute—and we must 
do that whenever we wish to do justice to single phenomena— 
then we must admit that there is a difference between totality 
and singularity, between a chrysanthemum and the world- 
creating.God. Everything living is indeed god-like; every one 
participates in his way in the creation of the world, and as his 
labours are correlated with those of all others, every perfect 
expression reveals directly the significance of the whole. But 
the man who creates on a large scale is of a different calibre 
from the proficient diminutive artist. A God sets millions of 
vibrations in motion with a single thought, and what the bee 
does afterwards must first have been made possible by Him. 
God is very likely incapable in details; He would scarcely be a 
good miniaturist. He is undoubtedly limited in His way just 
because He is capable only of everything, and must therefore 
delegate particulars to lesser people, just as He has always 
done, and hardly without compelling reason. Greatness un- 
doubtedly is limited by the fact of its greatness, and in the same 
way as this applies to smallness; nevertheless, the former is 


CHAP. 51°. MYANOSHITA 211 


more than the latter. As long as we are entangled in the world 
of appearances—and who knows if we will ever get beyond 
it?—-so long must we countenance this state of affairs; so long 
as the mere concept of enlargement is to retain its meaning, so 
long does quantity retain its objective value. Therefore, gran- 
deur is more than loveliness, no matter how perfect it may be. 
In the Himalayas nature possesses traits which can only be 
understood in relation to cosmic assumptions; the whole scen- 
ery defies human standards; no matter how luxurious the flora 
may be, it seems only like a touch of patina on an enormous 
bronze vessel. There is nothing in Japan that I know of which 
could not be understood from the human point of view. Nature 
seems big occasionally even here, but then only the outer 
frame is great, and the emphasis is laid upon the picture. The 
single twig of blossom held against the background of empty 
space—the favourite motif of so many Japanese artists—does 
indeed awaken in us a feeling of infinity. But it is, neverthe- 
less, the blossoming twig which causes this feeling and gives it 
colour. 

The concepts of our time which relate to this question seem 
to me to be somewhat chaotic. Conscious of the truth that 
everything perfect expresses infinity, we have got to the point 
of overlooking the differences in other dimensions; the blos- 
soming twig is put on the same level with God. This would 
not be a misfortune in itself: what does it matter what the 
critics assert? But it may become a tragedy eventually, in so 
far as it corrupts creative minds. Rainer Maria Rilke, a sensi- 
tive, delicate soul, has occasionally, when singing of the falling 
leaves of autumn, revealed God. But when he speaks of God 
directly he, so to speak, talks past Him. Rilke belongs to 
those to whom flowers are the most tangible expression of 
eternity. He should leave it to minds built on a larger scale to 
speak directly of the Divine. 


212 JAPAN PART VI 


52 
NIKKO 


HERE is grandeur in Japan after all. The scenery of 
T Nikko, with its steep rocks, its foaming waterfalls, its gi- 
gantic fir-trees and cryptomeria, is grand; and it produces this 
effect above all because it supplies a frame for a singularly 
powerful manifestation of humanity. In the Iyeyasu temple 
there is a spirit of grandeur such as I have not felt since Pekin. 

Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Dynasty, which con- 
trolled the destiny of this country for more than two and a half 
centuries under the mock-sovereignty of the Mikados, was a 
mighty man, comparable with the mightiest from every part 
of the earth. And just as quantitative transposition brings 
about qualitative change in the whole of nature, so did the 
Japanese type of ruler experience a radical metamorphosis in 
him: it was neither the halo of mythology nor courtly prestige, 
neither the advance of birth nor cleverness, nor a strong arm, 
which provided the background for this power—it was that 
genuine superiority of the born ruler which, though containing 
everything within it, yet towers above it; that intrinsic maj- 
esty which distinguishes all very great kings. Iyeyasu has 
left this spirit as a heritage to his successors; this spirit still 
rules over Nikko, over the monumental tombs of the Toku- 
gawas and their vassals, creating a psychic atmosphere which 
exists in no other place in Japan. 

It is marvellous that this one man was able to create a type 
which, compared with every other manifestation of the Jap- 
anese spirit, seems to belong to another dimension! Andi it is 
marvellous, above all, that this type has continued! I know 
no more impressive example of how decisive the frame of a 
picture can be for its character. Different forces are re- 
leased in man according to his outward position; the prin- 
ciple of life modifies its appearance in accordance with its 
opportunity for expression. Prestige, might, riches, the faith- 
ful admiration by inferiors, are an equal number of formative 
forces which cultivate and educate the soul, and often bring 


CHAP. 52 - NIKKO 213 


about a radical metamorphosis from to-day to to-morrow. 
This state of affairs is recognised by popular legend in the 
saying: God gives him intelligence to whom He gives an office. 
Only this saying overlooks one essential: that it is not every 
one, no matter how much intelligence he may have, who dis- 
charges every office well. The decisive factor is the living 
spirit which makes use of the intelligence, and this factor is a 
constant element in every one, capable of increase only in rare 
exceptions. The spirit in which a man was educated dominates 
him generally until the end. This is the true meaning of the 
idea of legitimacy, and also of the distrust of the homo novus: 
for one Iyeyasu, one Acoka, one Napoleon, there are thousands 
of talented upstarts who were not fit for their new posi- 
tions. In order to exploit to the full the forces which a ruling 
position may liberate in every one, this position must be ac- 
cepted as a matter of course. The consciousness of the ruler 
must coincide with the normal consciousness. And to believe 
in oneself to the extent which is required to treat as a matter of 
course what but lately was inconceivable, is given only to the 
rare genius. This affords to the man born to a certain position 
an absolute advantage over the upstart, it gives to an insignifi- 
cant hereditary king another pull over a distinguished par- 
venu. In the course of my life I have studied carefully the 
mentality of the various types of men with whom fate has 
brought me into relation: ruling princes, statesmen, financial 
magnates, rising men of talent; in the case of all those who 
were born to power and not degenerate, I have met with a 
normal state of consciousness which, though attainable by an 
ordinary mortal, is never normal to him, and this consciousness 
implies absolute superiority. This too has, of course, its specific 
limit; where the frame does not correspond to the picture, as is 
more and more the case to-day, superiority assumes the aspect 
of inferiority. But the vocation of the born ruler to rule strikes 
one nevertheless so forcibly that I have often asked myself in 
amazement how humanity can be so blind as to wish to give 
up the breeding of regents, when it breeds racehorses and 
milch cows. The opposite test leads to the same result; when- 
ever I had an opportunity of watching the rise of an important 


214 JAPAN PART VI 


man, I could, first of all, always observe inner growth: his own 
being found more and more means of expression. But as soon 
as the enlargement of the frame had led beyond a certain 
critical point, which was nearer or further away according to 
his calibre, he suddenly became smaller again; the means 
had become greater than the man. The limit of such stunted 
growth is the caricature of the parvenu. Iyeyasu had lifted 
his family to a position which was unique in importance in the 
whole of Japan. He himself was one of the few upstarts who 
was predestined, not only to rise, but to live on the heights. 
He passed on to his heirs the frame he had built for his own 
life. And this frame evinced so much formative power that the 
Shoguns possessed for two hundred years a style greater than 
any Japanese before or after them; and even to-day the 
spirit of their greatness still hovers over their graves. 


5S 
TOKYO 


HE imperial city . . . it is altogether without soul and 
A hess in spite of its magnificent planning, which dates 
from the Shogun period, and in spite of all the beauty which it 
contains; Tokyo is a modern city in the most unpleasant mean- 
ing of this word. 
And Tokyo, just Tokyo, is at the same time the residence of 
a mythical ruler, a monarch, whose people regard his position 
as higher than the Chinese regard that of the Son of Heaven; 
it is the residence of an emperor whose divine right really 
means Divinity! This co-existence of what is primordial with 
modernity is most remarkable. The fact that the Mikados 
have preserved their prestige through centuries, whereas they 
had almost no power, seeing that they were puppets in the 
hands of their stewards, and were installed and discarded like 
junior officials, does not seem surprising if one understands the 
significance with which the Mikados are invested by the 
opinion of the people: they belong to a different level of exist- 
ence from their subjects, and therefore it did not matter much 


CHAP. 53 TOKYO 215 


what happened to them in the human sphere; they were re- 
garded as on a level with the gods, who are broken to pieces 
when they cause displeasure, but who nevertheless remain 
higher beings. But that their prestige continues in the old 
sense when they, like other regents, play a definite part in the 
body of the state, that is something which is probably unprec- 
edented. 

Japan has progressed because a mythical ruler decreed it so. 
Until recently the court dictated public opinion: the imperial 
edicts of the most trifling content were read with the devotion 
which is appropriate to the revelation of heaven; the most 
distinguished statesmen of the old school did not regard them 
very differently from the common people. It cannot be denied 
that this state of affairs was to the benefit of Japan. Wherever 
individuals do not feel themselves to be emancipated, where 
they are inclined to imagine higher powers in the shape of 
personal symbols, where, moreover, the power of faith is 
sufficient, autocracy is the best form of government. There 
the ruler literally embodies the will of the nation, there the 
nation becomes literally conscious of itself in him; there the 
nation and the autocrat are actually at one inwardly. For 
there the personality of the autocrat, thanks to the creative 
faith of his subjects, grows of its own accord beyond the normal 
human scale. The Indian sages teach that exactly as far as a 
soul has risen in its struggle to God, He stoops to meet it. 
This is just what is true in reference to the relation of a ruler 
and his people: the more they concede to their ruler, the more 
does he develop towards the ideal of his subjects. The Russian 
Czars represented, until quite recently, a higher type of man- 
kind than the constitutional monarchs of Western Europe, 
for they were borne aloft by a powerful faith. In this way, 
Mutsushito, an average nature at the outset, has proved him- 
self a great man because divinity was expected of him. 

Once more I think of the problems of the comparative merits 
of monarchy and republic, and I see myself induced once again 
to profess my adherence to the monarchic system. How ad- 
mirably the overestimation of a superior justifies itself! No 
matter whether the superior originally deserves the veneration 


216 JAPAN PART Vi 


which is paid to him or not: if he is not actually bad, he does 
deserve it in the long run; every well-intentioned monarch has, 
in the course of time, developed into a more important human 
being than nine-tenths of his subjects. And while they, on the 
other hand, revere their ruler as a being of a higher kind, they 
act and become better than they would do in different circum- 
stances. Even mediocre individuals exert themselves to the 
utmost out of consideration for others, only the most highly 
cultured individual exerts himself thus out of consideration for 
himself. In a republic, moreover, every one is sovereign in 
principle, every one can advance to be the first man of the 
land; thus, no one feels cause for self-limitation; ambition and 
lust for power grow beyond all limits, and these excrescences 
endanger the soul. How unanimously all the facts give the lie 
to the prejudices of our age! The Japanese of the old régime 
do not regard themselves as individuals in the modern sense, 
and they are, humanly speaking, nevertheless far more valuable 
than most of the moderns. I am reminded of Laotse’s verse: 


Heaven is eternal and the earth enduring. 

The cause of the eternal duration of heaven and earth is 
That they do not live unto themselves. 

Therefore they can give life continuously. 


And again: 


He puts his own being behind, 

And his own being advances. 

He discards his own being, 

And his being is preserved. Is it not thus: 
Because he wants nothing for his own 
Therefore his own becomes perfect? 


+ 


I Have now also made the acquaintance of some of the great 
men of the Empire: they can hardly be referred to in the same 
breath as the common herd. The best among them have some- 
thing of the old Roman, something keen, clear; their superi- 


CHAP.53.- PORNO 217 


ority is to them a matter of course; and none of them has 
anything of the artist, anything sweetly delicate, or exquisite. 
They rather appear hard, and as though they might be cruel. 
The common Japanese qualities of quickness, sure vision and 
rapid understanding of everything tangible, seem to have a 
different connection in their case: what usually tends to make 
artists of the Japanese here benefits the spy, the gift of con- 
sideration the diplomat, while versatility and pliancy help the 
‘reorganiser’; here the tenacity of the race expresses itself in 
the form of iron will, and their matter-of-factness makes 
practical politicians of such an extreme variety of them as no 
Machiavelli has ever produced among us. Thus the problem 
as to how the Japan of Lafcadio Hearn was capable of such 
great political deeds does not arise at all; this Japan has merely 
shared in the transformation. The latter was begun and carried 
out by other types of men, to whom far-sighted action is as 
natural as the dwarfing of trees is to the market gardener. 
Still, the leaders in Japan are not leaders altogether in our 
sense, and that is what is Japanese in them; they are not so 
much factors as exponents. No matter how great their indi- 
vidual importance may be occasionally, their power depends 
upon their being representatives. In the case of the emperor, 
this relation is obvious: not only in Japan, but everywhere else 
in the world where this position is still surrounded by a myth- 
ical halo, it is more important that some one is the ruler rather 
than who the ruler is; his effect is creative in all circumstances 
as the focus of popular belief. The same applies to the states- 
men who have made Japan great. In all probability they all 
stood and stand as personalities below the level which the 
quality of their work lets us suppose; they could achieve it 
because they were borne aloft by the people. Where the con- 
sciousness of the individual amounts less to self-consciousness 
than the consciousness of belonging to a group, there he does 
not see something outside himself in his leaders, but real 
organs of his own being, and he obeys them as if he were acting 
on his own instructions. Thus, the guarantee for the calling of 
leadership in Japan depends, for the largest part, on perfec- 
tion in the organisation of the people. This means that as 


218 JAPAN PART VI 


long as the organisation is good born leaders will not be~ 
come extinct. Accordingly they display here a superiority such 
as can hardly be found anywhere else; Count Okuma is con- 
scious of his influence in the same sense as an emperor is con- 
scious of his divine right, and this consciousness as such means 
power. 

What I have stated here concerning the actual relation be- 
tween the leaders and the led in Japan, sounds like a descrip- 
tion of the ideal of democracy. Is it not significant that this 
has never yet been demonstrated by a democracy, but often by 
an aristocratic community? So long as the individual thinks 
atomically—and this is no doubt the main distinguishing fea- 
ture of democracy—so long will a perfect organisation of the 
community remain impossible. The ideal is certainly capable 
of realisation in principle also where personalities have be- 
come autonomous. But to do so they must have attained to a 
degree of inner culture of which there is not the faintest sign 
in present-day democracy. 


+> 


My impressions are forming themselves more and more into 
one general picture. So much is quite clear to me: the Japa- 
nese, or rather, those social layers of them who count politically, 
are not Orientals, if the concept of the Oriental is understood 
to include simultaneously the essential qualities of the Chinese 
and the Indians; the Japanese are nearer to us than they are 
to the Chinese, and to this extent they have a divine right to 
emulate us. Their similarity to the Chinese depends, for the 
most part, on the culture imported from China; according to 
their temperament they are, like ourselves, a progressive 
people, which, moreover, their history demonstrates unmis- 
takably from the beginning up to the present day; they went-to 
school, as it were, in Korea and China in former days in exactly 
the same sense as they emulate us to-day. For this reason, 
the Westernisation of Japan cannot be regarded in the same 
light as that of India or China. When I sailed through the 
inland sea, I was not a little surprised by the impression of 
entering into a world entirely new to me, which was divided 


CHAP. 53 . TOKYO 219 


by a profound chasm from that of China; it seemed to me as if 
I was breathing the same atmosphere as in the Greek archipel- 
ago, the atmosphere of a daring and adventurous seafaring life; 
I felt nothing of that cosmic calm, the majestic peace of China, 
nothing even of the Japan which Lafcadio Hearn has described. 
This Japan, of course, exists. But I may say to-day that my 
first general impression was correct: the essential characteristic 
of the Japanese people is their enterprising, exploiting quality, 
their pliant, practical adaptability, not their Japonerie. 

The Japanese is typically not a creator, nor is he an imitator, 
as has been asserted generally—he is essentially an exploiter 
in the sense of the jiu-jitsu fighter: jiu-jitsu is the very symbol 
of the Japanese. What are the qualities which are required to 
be a master of this art? Not creative initiative, but, on the 
other hand, an extraordinary power of observation, an instan~ 
taneous understanding for the empirical significance of every 
expression, and the ability to draw the greatest possible prac- 
tical advantage from it; it requires to the utmost that particular 
co-operation of head and hand where all recognition leads 
instantly to the most appropriate reaction of movement, in 
which all memory expresses itself as automatic action. All 
specifically Japanese civilisation depends upon this ability, and 
Japanese ‘imitation’ in particular has this significance. The 
Japanese does not really imitate—he derives an advantage, 
just as the wrestler does from the movements of his opponent; 
he does not copy, but he changes his attitude; it is given to 
him to enter with incomparable ease into all alien appearance, 
so as to understand from within its peculiarity (not its essential 
nature! ); having thus entered into organic relation with it, 
he then exploits it so far as it can be exploited. In this way the 
Japanese once exploited the culture of China. Perhaps he 
never understood it, but it cannot be asserted either that he 
merely imitated it externally—he had become absorbed com- 
pletely in its appearance, and then proceeded to live with a 
Chinese attitude. All forms contain specific possibilities, 
which become realised relatively independently of the fact 
whether their temporary bearers understand them, whether 
they mean anything to them or not; thus, the Japanese have 


220 JAPAN PART VI 


developed much that is Chinese in accordance with their very 
own spirit. They were never really animated by the Chinese 
spirit; they merely wore Chinese garb. Therefore they have 
remained almost untouched inwardly. I have pointed to the 
fact already, how little the Japanese have become changed 
inwardly in spite of all the influences to which they have sub- 
mitted themselves: this is due to their temperament, which 
has been described above. The Japanese may assimilate more 
alien matter than any other man on earth without having to 
fear any harm, because he is at bottom unsusceptible of influ- 
ence. 

The culture of China is a culture of expression, the culture 
of Japan one of attitude: it is difficult to conceive a more vio- 
lent contrast; whereas the one has its root in profundity, the 
other exhausts itself on the surface. There is no doubt that 
the Japanese is unsubstantial: where attitude is the last prem- 
ise, there inner content must be lacking. But it is precisely 
on this fact that the importance of Japan is based: it shows 
how far one can get without being substantial. One can get 
incredibly far. The Japanese have given values to the world 
which would never have been realised without them, they 
have created a superficial culture more charming than any 
other on earth. For this reason it is unjust to tarry longer with 
their insufficiencies. Substantiality is not a frequent phenom- 
enon anywhere; even among Indians there are Japanese, in 
so far as they are to be defined by their negative qualities; but 
the unsubstantial non-Japanese do not possess the advantages 
of the Japanese. No being is responsible for his natural dis- 
position; there are creatures whose minds can give expression 
to supreme being, there are others in whom their attitude is 
the ultimate fact. They are all equal before God in so far as 
they are perfect after their kind. But we human beings should 
learn at last to value every creature according to its own nature, 
and only demand from him what he is capable of. 

The Japanese may become Westernised without apprehen- 
sion: whereas the Indians and Chinese may not do so, be- 
cause, in the case of the Japanese, it is not a question of a 


CHAP. 53 | TOKIO) o5t 


real change, but only of assuming a new attitude as a fighter 
does. The problem, however, is not exhausted by this recog- 
nition: the Japanese possesses a soul in spite of all his adapt- 
ability, and even if his soul seems exposed to less danger than 
would be the case with other peoples who submit to alien in- 
fluences, his soul is nevertheless not exempt by some special 
charm; if the Japanese becomes contaminated at all, then his 
case is worse than that of any one else. There are two funda- 
mental feelings which must never be infringed if Japan is not 
to decay: one is their feeling for nature, the other their specific 
patriotism. 

I have already given my views concerning both these points; 
I only need to summarise what I have said and apply it to my 
present purpose. The feeling for nature in the Japanese cor- 
responds to the metaphysical feeling for the world of the 
Indian, and the consciousness of harmony of the Chinese; it is 
the same synthesis en miniature, and has the same profound 
reason. If it disappeared from his consciousness he would lose 
thereby the connection with his deepest self. Everything by 
means of which he might attempt to replace this fundamental 
quality would remain a superficial attainment, without direct 
connection with his soul. Suppose an Indian tried to change 
himself into a Greek: he would undoubtedly become super- 
ficial; not because his original tendency to see man as part of 
nature is objectively more profound, compared with the Greek 
view, to whom she remains something external and pictorial, 
but because he would not be capable of relating the Greek out- 
look on the world to what is profoundest in himself. In the 
case of the Japanese the same typical danger is considerably 
greater, because his field of vision is much more limited, be- 
cause incomparably fewer phenomena are capable of a rela- 
tionship with his soul. Thus, naturalism would not only 
lower Japanese art, as in our case, but it would literally kill it; 
and in the same way, lack of politeness makes the Japanese 
not merely unpleasant, as it does every one else, but superficial. 
If Japan does not cherish its feeling for nature proportionately 
more as it emulates us more intensively in other directions, it 


222 JAPAN PART VI 


may happen that one day its organism will be without a soul. 
The other feeling which Japan must not lose at any price is its 
patriotism; that peculiar synthesis of feeling which has died 
out in Europe, and is only revived for short periods during 
wars, I mean the synthesis of the individual, the group, the 
country and the ruling family. The Japanese are not yet in- 
dividuals in our sense; their centre still lies in the group; 
for this reason Westernisation will suit them only as long 
as the new organisation can be related to the old basis. 
Whereas progress in our case was a result of individualisation, 
in Japan it is until to-day an expression, amongst other things, 
of the non-individualised group-consciousness, and it might 
lead to stagnation or decomposition if the individual did be- 
come conscious of himself in the Western sense. The latter 
is already beginning; and it is beginning too soon. The 
younger generation gives its leaders much food for anxious 
thought, for it is betraying a questionable inclination to deny 
their old basis. If this process cannot be stopped or restricted, 
then the admirable structure of Mutsuhito and his ministers 
may collapse. It must therefore be arrested at any price. 
This is what Nogi meant when he disembowelled himself—he 
hoped that his action might cause the inherited Samurai-feeling 
to flame up again in the younger generation; this is what the 
Government is doing in trying to bring about, by all the means 
in its power, a renaissance of Shinto. Let us hope that they 
will be successful; I am concerned for the future of Japan. 
The more inevitably it appears that the old basis will collapse, 
the more must every possible effort be made to establish new 
living relations between the body and the soul, so that a new 
structure will at any rate have been started when the old house 
crumbles into dust... . 

Yes, Japan may become Westernised. But after I have been 
strictly objective for such a long time, I feel impelled to give 
vent to my personal feelings, and I must then say: personally, 
I regret deeply that this country is Westernising itself; mod- 
ernised Japan is entirely devoid of charm; the atmosphere of 
Tokyo in particular is oppressively trivial. Normal develop- 
ment unfortunately does not necessarily lead upward. Just as 


CHAP. 53 AL OKI O 223 


some individuals are themselves in the best sense when children, 
others when grown-ups, and again others when octogenarians, 
there is a stage of development for every people which is best 
suited to them; if it grows beyond this stage, even in the most 
desirable direction, it loses its charm, importance and value. In 
this sense, Frenchmen have declined since the eighteenth 
century, although there cannot be any question of degenera- 
tion even to-day; in the same way, England, whose height was 
attained in the nineteenth century, will lose henceforth in 
cultural significance. Every specific condition gives the soul 
definite means of expression, of which only a few correspond 
to it in that sense, as specific ability corresponds to a specific 
spirit. The moment or the epoch in which inner temperament 
and opportunities correspond to each other, signifies the zenith 
of a nation; it is then that the national genius manifests itself. 
Later on, the nation resembles more or less a Raphael without 
hands.* 

The Japanese show surprising attainments in their new 
course. As far as their achievements are concerned, there is 
no reason to suppose that one day they may not rival us. But 
these achievements signify nothing. Here they work with 
intellect alone, or, put more generally, with the tools of their 
soul, their inner being is left out of account; and I cannot 
imagine that time will bring any real improvement. The Jap- 
anese soul will never learn to express itself directly or com- 
pletely in the language of Occidental ability; at best it will 
stutter in this language, and it is not impossible that it will 
become dumb; the most exquisite and most artistic type of 
man may yet become dry-as-dust. Judged from the point of 
view of his substance, the Japanese is wrong to pursue prob- 
lems which are all too serious: he realises himself best in play; 
everything really original lies along the line of aydv, sport, of 
cheerful artistry. Here the profundities of his soul are re- 
vealed. But where he strives after important things in the 
worldly sense, he appears abstract. 


+ 


1] have developed this trend of thought at length in the chapter “The sym- 
bolism of history” in my book Schoepferische Erkenntniss. 


224 JAPAN PART VI 


soME of the leading spirits of Japanese Buddhism are staying 
.in Tokyo. I have taken the opportunity of correcting and 
enlarging the views which I have gained from conversation 
and the reading of holy writings, and I will now attempt to 
give a summarising judgment concerning Japanese Buddhism. 

The more detailed my study of Mahayana doctrine has be- 
come, the more I am impressed by its philosophical value. I 
know nothing which could be adduced against the meaning of 
its fundamental ideas, no matter how much may be wrong and 
superannuated in their individual manifestations, and the 
development of Japanese Buddhism converges to such an ex- 
tent with what are becoming the Christian world conceptions, 
that one might almost say that it signifies the line of indiffer- 
ence between the Eastern and the Western spirit. The 
philosophy of Acvagosha is, to old Indian philosophy, about 
what that of Hegel is to that of Parmenides, or that of Berg- 
son to the philosophy of Spinoza. That is to say, living dy- 
namism has replaced abstract statism, and this involves an abso- 
lute advance in recognition. The old Indians meant per- 
haps the same as the founders of the Mahayana doctrine, 
but they did not know how to express themselves adequately; 
with their minds bent upon the ultimate significance of events 
and things, they disregarded matter and thus arrived at a theory 
of eternal being which was said to exist in opposition to the flow 
of appearances. Acvagosha then achieved the same method- 
ological act which was later performed by Hegel and Bergson, 
and which has stamped them on their own historical level as 
pioneers: it re-established the connection between Being and 
Becoming, which had been destroyed by preliminary thought. 
Acvagosha recognised that Being and Becoming are only differ- 
ent aspects of one and the same absolute reality; that, there- 
fore, metaphysical Being and ‘Becoming and Decaying’ syn- 
chronise, and that duration of time is, in this connection, an 
absolute reality. Thus, he arrived at the same critical result to 
which a similar fundamental recognition has led Bergson in our 
day: that metaphysical significance is not to be sought for 
outside the process of concrete ‘Becoming.’ So far, Bergson has 
not gone further than this; he has not yet touched upon the 


CHAP. 53 TOKYO 225 


world of ethical commandments. But if he does so one day, 
then he will no doubt make the same assertion as Acvagosha 
1,700 years ago: that since metaphysical significance is not to 
be sought outside concrete ‘Becoming,’ all ideal postulates must 
also be capable of realisation within it. Bergson would not 
teach anything new in saying so, since this view is the guiding 
motif of all Christian philosophies. When Acvagosha, how- 
ever, taught the same, he performed a regular volte-face: 
compared with the old Indian philosophy, no matter how 
logical the development was which led him to this point, the 
inner attitude implying negation of the world changed into one 
of affirmation. If the highest ideal is to be realised within the 
world of ‘Becoming’—no matter at what higher level, that of 
the Arhat, the Bodhisattva, the Buddha—then the very reason 
for existence has been taken away from the ideals of the Yogi, 
which are all based upon the desire to get beyond appearance; 
then the colour of the Samsara no longer appears dark, for then 
history has been given back its meaning, or rather, a new and 
higher meaning has been imparted to it. According to the old 
Indian philosophy, there was no meaning whatever in history, 
since they accepted progress as existent only in the sense of 
becoming free from appearance, and did not classify empirical 
conditions as such; but the problems of history did arise for 
the believer in Mahayana doctrine. Thus, an evolution set in 
which was parallel down to details with that of Christianity. 
Northern Buddhism conquered the world irresistibly; it re- 
garded it as its mission to convert humanity, whereas Southern 
Buddhism, like Hinduism, never assumed such a duty. Ac- 
cordingly it suited its methods of teaching to the given circum- 
stances, and the spirit of knowledge of men and of politics was 
wedded to that of religiosity. This in its turn inevitably led to 
organised professions of faith, and further to the formation 
of sects; and the more the pragmatic attitude predominated 
over the desire for pure recognition, the more did its dogma 
resemble that of Christianity. The teachings of Christianity 
and most sects of higher Buddhism are so similar that the 
leading missionaries incline to the view that this higher Bud- 
dhism really was Christianity; a further development of the 


226 JAPAN PART VI 


teachings of Jesus Christ, not of Gautama Buddha. Up toa 
certain point this may be correct. But the surprising con- 
vergence within the development of their dogmas might very 
well have come about without any direct historical inter- 
dependence: the spirit of Mahayana and that of Christianity 
were closely related; thus, similar circumstances necessarily pro- 
duced similar manifestations. Still, there can be no question 
of the identity of both religions, because the confessional mani- 
festation in the case of Buddhism does not signify anything 
ultimate; to Buddhism, which in this respect has remained com- 
pletely Indian, it is a temporary and surmountable phenom- 
enon. If one must insist on its Christian character, one may 
say: Mahayana teaching is the kind of Christianity which 
would have developed among Indian sages. Philosophically, 
it towers high above the faith of the Westerners; but in efficacy 
it cannot stand the comparison. It is too all-embracing in its 
significance to appear single and act accordingly. The Church, 
in particular, in Japan, is most unsubstantial; it is art rather ~ 
than life, a fair form rather than deep significance. But Indian 
doctrine is innocent of this Church; it is solely the work of 
Japan. 

Of all traditional religions, Mahayana-Buddhism most 
closely resembles in idea the teaching which the God-seekers 
of our day are anticipating as the religion of the future; it is 
essentially without dogma, has a profound understanding of 
the value of cults, excludes no form of recognition, has some- 
thing to offer to every temperament; it is wide and profound, 
like Brahmanism, and also cognisant of the world and ener- 
getic, like Christianity. But just because it embodies an ideal 
for the future, it is only appropriate to the present state of 
affairs to a limited degree; I recognise this fact all the more 
clearly, the more I speak with the representatives of this faith. 
Its form is too wide, too loose, to be a formative factor for the 
average man; it does not act as an appropriate vessel for limited 
spirituality, especially one which is so little intellectual as that 
of the Japanese. I do not believe that any Japanese, either of 
to-day or of the past, ever did justice to the philosophical con- 
tent of Mahayana doctrine. They once upon a time imported 


CHAP. 53 . LORY 227 


it, just as they have introduced our technology to-day; they 
have always discovered, quickly and surely, the best in every 
department and turned it to their own advantage whenever 
possible. But man can only assimilate what is appropriate to 
his temperament, and this was never the case with Indian 
mysticism in relation to the Japanese; only the emotional and 
practical elements of the Mahayana religion have become vital 
forces in Japan. All specifically Japanese sects of Buddhism 
are essentially unphilosophic, and those of the prelates of 
to-day who concern themselves with its speculative elements 
do so only as scholars; what is vital in it is beyond their under- 
standing. 

For the rest, the Japanese are not essentially more irreligious 
than we are, whom they resemble much more closely than they 
do the Chinese or the Indians. Their cultured classes do not 
as a rule believe in any definite religion, like most Europeans 
of to-day. And here as well as there, the simple people are 
blind believers; both develop, in contradistinction to the 
Indians, into agnostics as soon as their thought becomes eman- 
cipated, because they cannot as yet embark upon the road to 
God through recognition, and the process of thought distracts 
when it begins from the directness of experience; just like the 
Japanese, our religious leaders belong, almost without excep- 
tion, to the emotional and practical types, and as far as thought 
and recognition are concerned, they have been mediocrities. 
Only that which is typical of both worlds appears in a more 
extreme form in Japan. Perhaps only once, in the figure of St. 
Francis of Assisi, has the Bhakta experienced a perfect embodi- 
ment among us; among the Japanese this has happened on 
countless occasions; their delicate and feminine sensibility 
offered love a unique possibility of materialisation. And our 
religious leaders have only rarely been so extremely practical as 
many have been in Japan. I had the good fortune to-day to 
make the acquaintance of the most important representative 
of the latter kind, the Abbot Soyen Shaku of Kamakura, the 
head of one of the branches of the Zen-sect.*. The Zen-sect is 


1See his Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, translated by Super Ki, Chicago, 
1906, The Open Court Publishing Company. 


228 JAPAN PART VI 


the most philosophical of higher Buddhism; it teaches direct 
absorption in God, independent of book knowledge and cults; 
its theory is almost identical with that of Shankara, and its 
practice is real Yoga practice. This teaching, introduced in 
China by Bodhidharma, was originally the most purely Indian 
of all. But just because it teaches inwardness and nothing else, 
it has produced profoundly different results among nations of 
different temperaments, just as Yoga always increases the 
existing peculiarities. Its Indian disciples were made more 
profound in recognition. In China it led to a unique revival 
of feeling for nature; the greatest masters of landscape paint- 
ing were all adepts in Zen. In Japan it became the central 
school for heroism. The Japanese, to whom philosophy means 
little, recognised at an early stage that nothing heightens and 
strengthens the powers of the soul more than such training; 
and therefore just the warriors, the Samurais, showed a pref- 
erence for education by the Zen monks. H6jé Tokimune, the 
hero who made the Mongol hordes of Kubla-Khan retreat, 
used to spend hours in meditation. Even to-day the same is 
true: several of the leading men of modern Japan have been 
disciples of Soyen Shaku. I visited him in his temple at Kama- 
kura. I have never yet had such an impression of inwardness, 
coupled with equal martial energy; this delicately built monk 
is thoroughly military in appearance. How he must have 
inspired the troops whom he accompanied through Man- 
churia! The method by which he teaches meditation is hard. 
The pupils sit in a large, empty room in the attitude of 
Buddha; the abbot walks up and down between them, stick in 
hand, and if some one goes to sleep he kicks him; if any one 
gets tired he is not allowed to rest before the lesson is at an end, 
but only to go the round a few times in silence with his hands 
folded and held up above his head. Afterwards the teacher 
holds a merciless cross-examination to discover whether the 
pupils have mastered their subject. I discussed the significance 
of these practices with the venerable abbot. He is a philos- 
opher who understands the spiritual meaning of the Zen doc- 
trine to the full. But his outlook is that of the man of practical 
life. He did not regard it as the aim to tarry in the realm of 


CHAP.53- TORO 229 


revelation, but the object was to steel the forces in striving after 
it to such a degree that they were a match for all the ideal prob- 
lems of this life. How ‘Western’ is the spirit which spoke 
through him! I am thinking of American New Thought: 
this doctrine does not regard Christianity very differently from 
the way in which Soyen Shaku regards the doctrine of Sakya- 
munis. And then, with a smile, I think of the relativity of 
the value of all conceptual manifestations. .. . 


+ 


YESTERDAY, the last day but one before I leave Japanese soil, 
I delivered a lecture to the professors and students of the 
Faculty of Philosophy on my experience in Indian Yoga, and 
on the vital significance of this art. The problems seemed 
strange to my listeners; apparently it had never occurred to 
them hitherto to study the ancient wisdom, not only by text- 
criticism from the outside, but from within. What one of 
these gentlemen said to me in reply was most noteworthy. 
They (the Japanese) were so accustomed to the fundamental 
Buddhist ideas that they involuntarily failed to notice them. In 
point of fact the same thing happens to many of us in regard to 
Christianity, and this is undoubtedly an important cause of 
the interest which Europe has lately betrayed in the religions 
of the East. Europe has become tired of Christianity, which is 
bound to happen sooner or later to everything with which we 
are familiar, and to the profundity of which we can no longer 
do justice. Only the unfamiliar stimulates us; it causes more 
vital vibrations, even if there is no doubt that the new and the 
familiar subjects mean the same, and this stimulating effect 
continues even if one proceeds at once (which happens fre- 
quently) to interpret habitual concepts as unfamiliar ones. 
Thus, the Japanese scholars find more stimulus in Christianity 
than in Buddhism, and overestimate it accordingly, whereas 
we to-day tend to the opposite mistake. But does this imply an 
objection against interest in alien things? Certainly not; least 
of all in the case of religion. Here it is a question of realisa- 
tion, and realisation only, and if an alien form does better 
service than the inherited one, it is a matter of course that 


230 JAPAN PART VI 


we must accept it. Generally this acceptance only implies a 
bypath to the old form, as may be seen already to-day in the 
West, where the enthusiasm for India ultimately comes to 
benefit Christianity (not one of the latter most recent and most 
profound interpretations would have been possible without 
unconscious influence by the spirit of Indian philosophy). For 
the rest, this phenomenon proves once more the blessedness of 
non-uniformity. Man needs alien elements, which he may 
overvalue, not to get weary of his own peculiarity, to main- 
tain it alive and to prevent it from becoming rigid, and this 
interchange is the very condition of the harmony of the whole. 
Could poets flourish if they did not look up to heroes? Or 
statesmen if they did not overestimate the poets? Would the 
Germans be what they are, the most universally cultured nation, 
without their much-blamed national defect of preferring for- 
eign values to their own? Just he who is most concerned with 
co-operation has least cause to support the foolish ideal of 
uniformity, for a living harmony is possible only owing to the 
interaction of thesis and antithesis. 

But to return to my lecture: it was objected at its conclusion 
that what I had learnt from the Brahmins I might also have 
found in the Christian mystics. In this respect my listeners 
were mistaken. No matter how true it may be in general that 
alien phenomena as such are stimulating, no matter how often 
it may happen that there is no profounder motive at the bottom 
of our preference for India, Christian Yoga has not the same 
significance for us moderns as Indian Yoga has; and this 
because the former is operative exclusively in the sphere of 
subjective emotion, and because no recognition can be derived 
through feeling." The man who longs fervently for the 
Mother of God may perhaps one day catch a glimpse of her, 
but we will never be able to ascertain whether his vision corre- 
sponded to an objective reality. What is so wonderful in In- 
dian Yoga is the perfect rationality of its methods. We do, 
of course, not know whether it leads with certainty to the goal 


11 have explained the true relation of thought and feeling from the point 
of view of progress in the chapter ‘Antikes und Modernes Weisentum’ in 
Schoepferische Erkenntmss. 


CHAP. 53 ; TOKYO 231 


it is supposed to lead to, and whether the phenomena with 
which it is connected have been recognised and interpreted 
correctly; but in principle the possibility exists of testing the 
exactitude of its assertions along with its theories. And this 
assures the greater value to the Indian doctrine of self-culture 
compared with the corresponding Christian doctrines. Modern 
humanity is intellectualised to such an extent that only that 
which has been understood can hope to take hold of its inmost 
soul. The Indians alone have understood what was the uni- 
form experience of all profound men. 

We Europeans are beginning to recognise this more and 
more. Will the peoples of the East, in so far as they become 
unfaithful to their inheritance, do the same? Perhaps not; 
for apparently the mere need for change, which lies at the 
bottom of our Indomania and the Japanese Christomania de- 
pends for its own part on something deeper: the law according 
to which a certain manifestation can never serve the same 
people twice as a vessel of the highest ideal. Greek art is, 
even to-day, a spiritual leaven for the world, but it is not the 
Greeks who continue to foster it; the same applies to the world 
of forms of the Renaissance, of Byzantine and Buddhist art, 
and the same applies to forms of thought and belief. Here 
too the once-and-for-all principle applies which governs all 
life; every definite being, as such, must die, and its immortal 
part continues to exist only in perpetual new incarnations. So 
much at any rate is certain, that our orientalisation and the 
westernisation of the East, which are developing in the widest 
sense at present, mean something much more profound than 
has hitherto been recognised: they imply that renewal of the 
means of expression which alone makes rejuvenation possible. 
The mere fact that there is a general demand for rejuvenation 
proves that the world is really becoming new again; a period 
which merely continues or concludes does not know any struggle 
for renewal. Neither Buddhists nor Christians in their his- 
torical forms represent final stages. What has never existed 
as yet longs to be created and seeks with passionate zeal for 
suitable parents, like the soul returning to life upon earth. 
Apparently we stand on the threshold of a period similar to 


232 JAPAN PART VI 


that which marked the first century after Christ. At that 
period too there was a general change, even then East and 
West joined hands, and the result will be to-day, as it was 
then, an enlargement of the basis of life. For, no matter 
how exclusive the manifestations were which originated from 
this fusion—Christianity as well as Buddhism is what it is 
only as the heir of everything which preceded it.* 

However, the various life-forces in themselves will remain 
different for ever; the living principles of East and West 
are not exchangeable or transferable; if we assimilate the 
knowledge of the East, this does not mean that we are acquiring 
its soul, but that we create new organs for our own, and the 
same applies, mutatis mutandis, to the East.” If we consider 
the problem of influence in regard to its significance to a given 
soul, such as takes place during critical periods, the following 
is the case: far from implying an alteration of being, the 
acceptance of alien phenomena represents rather at certain 
times the shortest path to self-realisation. We would never 
have become ‘Westerners,’ if the Germanic people had not 
once taken over the Syrian faith; and we will only perfect 
ourselves at our level after fertilisation and rejuvenation 
through the Indo-Chinese spirit. Let us hope that the situation 
in Japan is similar. The regeneration which foreign influence 
exercises in the long run is inevitably introduced by a period 
of apparent decay; thus it will probably take a little while be- 
fore the Japanese will be able to work independently with 
our means: to-day they seem even more mechanical than we 
do. We too are still slaves of our tools of recognition. The 
specifically European Yoga (the observation of the outer 
world) has led to the creation of an enormous apparatus, the 
control of which requires an equivalent inwardness. And we 
lack this just because our aspirations have been directed to ex- 
ternal things; we too are the serfs of the spirit which we 


1My book Schoepferische Erkenntniss traces the outlines of the new world 
which is in the making; it shows, moreover, in what sense history is just 
beginning. 

2 See my lecture, first delivered in English in China, now reprinted in Ger- 
man in Philosophie als Kunst, ‘Uber die inneren Beziehungen zwischen den 
Kultur Problemen des Orients und Okzidents.’ 


CHAP. 53 DO RYEO 233 


created, like the Zauberlehrling of Goethe. The fact that our 
failings are even more obvious in the case of the Japanese is 
only natural. Sooner or later, and probably sooner than we 
think, they too will, in their way, work their way up from 
slaves to masters. 

For us, however, it is precisely the insufficiency of the Japa- 
nese in our sense which interests us; it is perhaps more signifi- 
cant for humanity in general than their greatest triumph could 
be: it illustrates with incomparable distinctness the main and 
fundamental weaknesses of that civilisation which is con- 
quering the world to-day. In fact, the enthusiasts of progress 
are aiming at precisely that which has robbed the modern 
Japanese of his value as a human being. What they wish to 
overcome is not their crudeness but their humanity, the in- 
herited belief that no earthly gain can compensate for the hurt 
of the soul; what they strive after is existence, purely instru- 
mental in character, which the Westernised Far Eastern Asiatic 
embodies. He stands there to-day without any cultural inhibi- 
tions; he sees in himself only a means of becoming powerful 
and rich, and believes in success pure and simple. And he is 
absolutely right in so far as any justification can be admitted 
for his ‘philosophy,’ for he has had the most successful career 
of all people who have ever lived. Thanks to the absolute 
surrender to what is purely external, he has achieved in some 
thirty years what Europe, teeming with ideals, has taken cen- 
turies to accomplish: it is therefore in the nature of this civilisa- 
tion to favour soullessness, 





BARE SEVEN:-TO DHE NEW WORLD 





54 
ON THE PACIFIC 


LOWLY the ship glides out into that ocean over which man 
S has no more dominion than the dolphin. How blissful 
to be able to forget the peculiarity of one’s position! How 
very much it enlarges the basis of experience! I have 
never spent any length of time in centres of civilisation without 
being ultimately overcome by a feeling of aversion: not against 
culture as opposed to nature, but against the human element. 
There are certainly all sorts of things to be said for man, but 
why tarry there? What do the advantages of one animal 
species signify in relation toa world? People like to laugh at 
the scientist whose interest in life centres exclusively in ants; I 
regard the one-sided investigator of civilisation as equally 
ridiculous. Since we are human, we have, for good or ill, to 
fulfil our human destinies: to produce children, to breed cattle, 
to rule states, to write books, as the case may be; in exactly 
the same sense as one would have had to gather pine needles 
if one had been born into the world an ant. But to extend 
one’s free interest in humanity over and above this—that is 
too much. 

The continuous conceit, especially of white men, prompts 
me, by way of reaction, to incline to estimate him below his 
value. Asiatics do not overestimate themselves anything like 
as much as we do; accordingly in India I felt no kind of aver- 
sion to human beings. But in India man has hardly impressed 
his specific nature upon appearance; there, men stand out 
against the rest of creation hardly differently from the way in 
which one species of animals stands out against another. In 
Japan their peculiarity dominates; nothing like as unpleasantly 
ageressive as in our case, but it happens for all that. For this 
reason I am delighted, although I have learned to love Japan, 
that the hour of departure has come. 

The heights are already beginning to sink below the horizon. 


The sea-mews which accompany us are turning back. Within 
237 


238 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


a further brief hour, the last memory of the mainland will 
have disappeared. 


+ 


THis is the ocean. For days no steamer, no sailing ship; nor 
shall we meet one for days to come. I spend most of my 
time in the bows, in order to separate myself as much as 
possible from my human surroundings. Again and again I 
imagine where I am, what the ocean means; how here, only 
here, life has continued uninterruptedly from Silurian times. 
And the magic of immeasurability seizes hold of me more 
and more. 

I feel very, very happy. That is because I am completely 
lonely, and nothing prevents me from denying all boundaries 
and barriers. How can one feel isolated as long as one is 
alone? ‘The consciousness of isolation is the result precisely 
of being together with others. Only where one is in the com- 
pany of others is one arrested and mercilessly tied down by 
one’s limitations. As soon as one is alone, all isolation dis- 
appears. Then consciousness escapes one’s personality. Then 
no tendency returns back into itself. Then one becomes wide 
as the world. 

And if I drifted upon a rudderless float instead of being on 
a well-navigated steamer, would I not feel differently? 
Hardly, as long as the body did not speak too loudly and 
impose its needs upon the soul. For what difference exists, 
regarded from the angle of the spirit, between the ocean and 
that ego upon which I have drifted the whole of my life? 
Men like to compare their life with a ship, which is steered 
by the ego and glides along upon the stream of events: I 
cannot regard this picture as correct. My ego is ocean enough 
already; my ego is the sea in the sense of the usual comparison; 
it depends upon the course which I steer upon it what form 
my visible life takes on. Originally I am not master of my 
thoughts and feelings: they come and go according to some 
obscure natural law. My will is an impersonal power, so is 
my intellect; and my consciousness is a wide domain whose 
boundaries I do not know and can hardly guess at. I really 


CHAP. 54 iH Be PA Gi eC 239 


feel within myself as I do upon the sea. I must steer per- 
petually between my instincts, the aim in sight, otherwise I 
might suffer shipwreck. My person is the outer world in 
reference to my inmost self; I am not my person, I only move 
within it. And if inwardly I have taken a step forward, this 
means that I have advanced upon the sea; the previous posi- 
tion stands there in memory. Man travels through his body; 
the material changes, only the direction remains. Just so he 
wanders through his soul. The more he assimilates experi- 
ences, the more he finds out, the better does he know himself. 
The man who has reached the goal is he who knows the domain 
of his soul and controls it as the Viking does the sea. 

Yesterday I watched some very curious flying fishes which 
flew up in surprise from the track of our steamer. My soul 
also produces similar phenomena. In my consciousness too, 
ideas occasionally spring up, which are probably at home in 
my subconscious, but which come as a surprise to me; and in 
me too there live creatures which resemble rays and sharks. 
I know it well enough: the dangerous elements which used 
to take hold of me so often in former days, but now hardly 
show themselves at all unless I relax in my dreams—they have 
not died; I simply do not meet with them any more. Every 
demon whom I have thought dead would fall upon me with 
undiminished power in a second if I stepped upon him un- 
warily. Of course, if I know where I am going, then I need 
not be in fear of the demons. In themselves they are well 
worth seeing. One must only know them, then one may even 
play with them. 

It is not without satisfaction that I recall the mistakes which 
I have committed in the course of my life: if I had not com- 
mitted them then, I would undoubtedly be a worse man 
to-day. Nor can I really regret, in my heart of hearts, that 
others were caused pain in the process. A certain amount of 
guilt is predestined from the start to every one who strives 
earnestly after perfection; this he ought to take upon himself 
from the beginning. In so doing he does, judged metaphys- 
ically, precisely what Jesus wanted to achieve historically 


240 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


when He took the sins of the whole of markind upon His 
shoulders. 


~~ 


In truth, who am I? The older problems come up again; 
only this time they appear less clear than usual, just as if 
the vibrations of the mind were softened by the waves of the 
sea. Regarded from the angle of phenomena, I am the mental 
image which controls me at the time. In the metaphysical 
sense I, Hermann Keyserling, probably do not exist at all. 
There is nothing concrete in me which was not created and 
does not pass away in me, nothing from which there is no 
escape or change, nothing with which I could identify the 
eternal element in me. All and every appearance is ‘nature,’ 
beginning with character down to the mood of the moment; 
what I regard as ‘myself? is the passage of my mental images, 
as they are presented at a given moment. These mental 
images are sometimes of an inner, sometimes of an external 
origin, and which of them become the bearers of my lasting 
ego-consciousness depends, not upon their origin, but upon 
the intensity with which I embody them; the embodiment is 
the decisive factor. If this be true, then, judged from the 
Atman point of view, there is no difference between the origi- 
nality of the genius and the obedience of a child. However, 
no embodiment is permanent; the only thing constant is the 
direction which the series of incarnations perseveres in. This 
direction alone then would be of purely inner origin, could 
possibly be regarded as ‘self’; or else this self would be that 
which determines a change in a certain direction. But this 
view does not exhaust the difficulties of understanding the 
problem. Suppose I were the direction, or the directing factor: 
this self is then, at any rate, nothing personal; no matter 
whether, if it is ultimately an aspect of the all-embracing One 
or an independent monad—all discussion concerning this point 
is futile—it is not that which any one could regard as his 
ego. This is where the difficulties of the idea of immortality 
begin. The problem of continuation is, of course, a phenom- 
enological, not a metaphysical problem, but it is precisely 


CHAP. 54 HE Pa Gene 241 


as such that it mocks all tangible solution, because that which 
is felt to be the personal ego is the point of intersection of an 
infinite number of tendencies, of which the ego is but one, and 
precisely those among them which seem to be particularly 
personal, such as opinions, feelings, thoughts, determination 
by the will, demonstrably do not lead to infinity. The ques- 
tion would be most simple if I could regard myself as my 
problem or my ideal or my path; in that case I would literally 
continue to exist in the progressive effect of my ideas; in this 
case the immortality of Jesus, for instance, would coincide 
with the development of Christianity. To-day this attitude 
is more plausible to me than any other. I have served from 
my earliest childhood an ideal which, although I did not 
recognise it consciously at the beginning, nevertheless gave the 
direction to my life even then; from the very start I have had 
an intimate consciousness of what I should do (which some- 
times appeared in the form of what I might or might not do), 
and this consciousness is so dominant that, even to-day, al- 
though I am determined enough and lack all inclination to 
self-sacrifice, I would surrender my person without question 
if I met a man as whose servant or tool I believed I could 
fulfil my mission better. My mission would thus be my real 
ego; I would continue to exist after my death as the effect 
produced by the solution of my problem. In case I do not 
fulfil my task altogether, and consequently fail to exhaust 
myself in my effects, it is conceivable that another possibility 
of future life might appear: my personal consciousness would 
coincide for a second time with the same problem. It can 
never be proved that such reincarnation does not exist, because 
the next individual who attempts the same problem will be 
conscious again as ‘ego,’ and therefore the form and the 
essential content of consciousness would be identical in both 
cases—but it is, of course, equally impossible to prove that 
such reimbodiments take place actually. Certainly, as I have 
said, no view commends itself more to me to-day than that an 
objectively real idea passes through various incarnations; that 
man is exactly as immortal as his ideal and exactly as real 
as the energy with which he serves it; I cannot believe that 


242 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


continued existence is inevitable. Most people are really dead 
after death; that is to say, they cease*to be the bearers of con- 
sciousness, no matter whether they continue to exist objectively; 
there are only a few who continue beyond a limited historical 
period. If, however, a man arises who knows how to incarnate 
a fundamental world-idea in his person, as Buddha and Christ 
succeeded in doing, then he goes on living through all eternity. 

These are ‘indoid’ thoughts. Nothing is more characteristic 
for a philosophy than the kind of physical background which 
it demands, evokes or is able to support. Here upon the ocean 
I wanted to begin with the reading of the Bible in order, by 
this means, to swing back mentally to the West; however, this 
plan did not and will not materialise so long as the ocean is 
present. Compared with this expanse, the concentration which 
consciousness has experienced in Christianity appears as a limi- 
tation, to which the whole surroundings give the lie. I have 
said it already and I repeat it here, that, from the point of 
view of the active and creative man, Christianity is profounder 
than Buddhism because its doctrine makes the man of action 
more profound; God can also be found by striving to bring 
appearance to the utmost perfection; in fact, for every non- 
contemplative individual this is the shortest road to God. 
The man who is intent upon achievements must think some- 
thing of himself, he must in fact overestimate himself, as his 
energy would otherwise become lame. For this reason it can 
hardly be avoided that the Karma Yogis overvalue and mis- 
understand themselves as individuals. . . . But the mood of 
the man of action cannot endure upon the ocean; there, con- 
sciousness denying all personal will involuntarily finds its centre 
in the universe like the drop in the ocean, not in the sense 
that it rises above all appearance, but that it may only con- 
template the very vastest phenomenal complexes. Thus, 
Buddhist trains of thought arise inevitably on the Southern sea: 
for no one has understood the correlation of appearances 
more profoundly, or presented them more impressively, than 
the Tathagata. 


+ 


CHAP. 54 THE PACIFIC 243 


I am never tired of watching the flight of the albatross, 
seven of which are already accompanying us. At times they 
remain behind us for hours, probably in order to search hunt- 
ing-grounds at some distance, or to slumber a little upon the 
way. Then suddenly they are there again, as if the steamer 
had not advanced at all in the meantime. And how they sail! 
This gliding flight seems to me to be perfection itself. Once 
they are in motion, they never make a steering movement: the 
mere alteration of the angle which their wings form with the 
surface of the sea, the rhythmic rising and falling, the clever 
exploitation of the streams of the air suffice them to produce 
with the least expenditure of power a speed which seems to be 
unaffected by time. It is marvellous to watch how these living 
sailing ships cruise; they are most beautiful perhaps when, 
wishing to describe a sharp turn, they throw themselves over 
on one side and dip one wing deep into the water, in order to 
find more resistance. 

These birds of the high seas belong to the most wonderful 
creations in nature. They are beings who, without being water 
animals, do not need the mainland; they rest upon the way, 
they are borne aloft by the wind; to them the monotonous 
expanse of the ocean is a domain to be surveyed as easily as 
the townsman surveys the district in which he dwells. Un- 
doubtedly they are supplied with senses of which we have no 
conception. They somehow have a priori knowledge of the 
fundamental facts of geography; they are masters of meteor- 
ology, they feel directly the distance at which they are from 
the mainland. And yet, from our point of view, they are 
dull. Without a sextant, without intellect, without any of the 
tools which are at the disposal of civilised man, and presumably 
without a clear consciousness, the albatross nevertheless knows 
its way about the sea better than the most experienced captain. 

It would be well if mankind were a little more reticent in 
its disdain of the capacities of animals. There are many ways 
of entering into relation with the world, and our way is not the 
best in all directions. Every being is harnessed in the univer- 
sal cohesion, and possesses in general outline the qualities 
which he needs for purposes of self-preservation. Where his 


244 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


position is a very unfavourable one, there he requires the most 
remarkable capacities. The amoeba is in many ways more 
gifted than we are; the worm, constantly threatened by dis- 
section, regenerates himself like an Indian god; man is prob- 
ably capable of all sorts of things which awake the envy of the 
gods. Absolute, uncompensated advantages cannot be proved 
to exist in this universe. Thus, one may revere an ideal in 
the albatross which is more unattainable to man than the condi- 
tion of divinity. 


b he) 
HONOLULU 


HE aquarium of Honolulu is quite rightly regarded as 

one of the wonders of this world. There are fishes there 
glistening like jewels, with contours as strange as the grotesque 
drawings of Japanese artists, as gaily coloured as butterflies 
and humming-birds. In this water there lives all the shimmer- 
ing gorgeousness which usually only peoples the air. 

I am trying to penetrate the meaning of this manifestation. 
Biologically, it is not a question of a special problem, because 
the colours are not really extravagant; they often contribute 
to the protection of the animals. The dark blue fishes with 
the velvet sheen and bird-like beaks must be invisible in the 
depth, and the same is probably true of the yellow ones; the 
gaily coloured fishes, however, which strike the eye almost 
painfully in the bare glass containers, undoubtedly lose their 
startling appearance against the background of a coral reef. 
They move, moreover, with the utmost skill. The most re- 
markable specimen of the collection is a moon-shaped, two- 
dimensional fish, with black and yellow stripes, whose back 
fin is elongated into a flag. This flag is so disproportionately 
long that its owner can only move with difficulty, for its ex- 
tremity is at the mercy of every current. This cunning crea- 
ture, however, only lives in archways of rocks, and then moves 
in such a way that the play of colours of his tail glisten and 
glimmer and the flag acts as the arm of an octopus, which 


CHAP. 55 HON ODE U 245 


every robber cautiously avoids. So much is obvious. How- 
ever, the problem of life is not solved by pointing to the ap- 
propriateness of its organs. The colours of Hawaiian fishes 
are not the most appropriate of all those which are conceivable, 
but that is what they would have to be if their suitability were 
to explain everything. These colours do not connote a neces- 
sity either, for protective colours could have been achieved 
with less expenditure of effort; in fact, less colouring would 
undoubtedly have been of greater advantage, for all these 
decked-out creatures which do not remain in a fixed place, but 
change their background frequently, are hardly less visible 
and endangered in the waters of the Pacific than the chaffinch 
is in the northern snow landscape. The quality of appropriate- 
ness only defines the lower limit; that is to say, no organism 
is so equipped that it could not exist and propagate itself. 
But if the life of some among them is no easier than that of 
the most exploited human serf, others occupy an incomparably 
more advantageous position. I can only explain the gorgeous- 
ness of colour of the fauna of the Pacific by the fact that 
Nature delights, no less than man, in fantastic feats. As I 
watch the effect of these animals upon me, I feel something 
like the same spirit which animated men like Gauguin and 
Robert Louis Stevenson. For ‘spirit’ is effective in everything 
that lives; in the case of plants and animals it still possesses, 
in the physical sphere, those qualities of freedom and invention 
which are confined almost completely to the psychic sphere in 
the case of human beings. Thus, those miracles of organisa- 
tion come to be created, compared with which the human body 
seems so unsatisfying, thus the perfect adaptability of animals 
to their surroundings, their mutability and power of regenera- 
tion, are explained; these manifestations mean, in the physical 
sphere, precisely what invention and artistic creation mean in 
the psychic sphere. And just as man creates sometimes what 
is purely practical, sometimes, again, what is practical and 
simultaneously pleasing, and sometimes what is pleasing as a 
purpose in itself, just so Nature also oscillates between the 
poles of utility and beauty, and does not deny herself the 
luxury, where the general circumstances permit it, of giving 


246 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


rein to her fancy. But how much more certain are her in- 
stincts! No matter how fantastic her ideas may be, she never 
creates anything which is untrue in itself, incapable of life or 
nonsensical. ‘There is nothing futuristic about her; nor does 
she ever indulge in the bad habit of so many artists who are 
contented with a sketch. Some fishes do make one think that 
they may owe their origin to the whim of a moment rather than 
to a deep-rooted idea, that they are, so to speak, occasional 
poems; and that is probably what they are in so far as their 
possibility of significant existence seems tied to a particular 
condition, as the yellow-black flag fish seems confined to narrow 
slits of rock. But as expressions they are equally perfect; in 
no case has the execution failed. 

Once more my observations lead me to an unfavourable 
judgment of humanity. Of course we embody richer possibili- 
ties than the animals, but how few we have translated, up 
to to-day, into values of reality! We appear like mere bar- 
barians compared with the fishes of the South Sea. We are 
endowed with the gift of self-determination: who makes use 
of it? In Benares I once watched a flock of guinea-fowls being 
driven home: the herdsmen, with a palm in his hand, literally 
brushed them in front of him, and no sail ever answered to the 
changing wind more accurately than did these birds to the 
caprices of the driver. Are we human beings in any way 
different? To this extent perhaps, that we do not allow our- 
selves to be led by every one; if an unsuitable person stands at 
the head, then we act independently enough. But even the 
guinea-fowls would not have kept such good order if a dog 
instead of a man had been at the back of them. As soon as the 
right man takes on the leadership, ninety-nine out of every 
hundred renounce their autonomy with enthusiasm. . . . How 
lamentably men overvalue themselves! Poets believe that 
they have a monopoly of giving expression to the meaning of 
things: in point of fact, there have not yet been ten, from the 
days of antiquity up to the present, who have equalled any 
rose in this respect. No doubt more can be achieved in the 
psychic sphere than in the clumsy, unpliable physical world. 
But is it achieved? Only too rarely. 


CHAP. 56 THE KILAUEA CRATER 247 


But I will return once more to the question of appropriate- 
ness. It is instructive to meet, among the curious creatures 
populating the aquarium, a figure which is not natural in its 
effect. In one of the glass containers there are Japanese orna- 
mental fish. They are bred just as double carnations; they are 
the product of human imagination. They look pleasant enough 
in the beautifully shaped vases in which they are displayed 
in Japan, but they do not fit into different surroundings. Their 
tails are of no use for steering, they have developed into 
powerless appendages; their eyes are tired and too big, like 
those of lap-dogs; their all too round bodies can hardly divide 
the water any more. How helplessly such creatures behave, 
even in a sea en miniature! ‘They can only be preserved arti- 
ficially; left to themselves, their race would die in a few weeks. 
This consideration makes very plain what the truth is con- 
cerning the ideal of natural appropriateness. Of course we 
should not ‘return’ to Nature, for Nature herself never stands 
still; but we should only advance in such a direction as does 
not lead into a cul-de-sac. This was the case of the ancestors 
of the Japanese ornamental fish. 


56 
ON THE KILAUEA CRATER 


HE moon may have offered a spectacle like this before she 
() Beam burnt out; on earth there is nothing to equal it. A 
volcano, not a mountain vomiting fire, but a sea of fire, a sea 
as it sometimes rages in the north, when the spring tempests 
break up the ice. A wild surging, frothing, foaming, whirling 
mass around the melting floes. And the lava roars and sings 
like the sea. 

In the daytime the spectacle is not particularly impressive; 
the cauldron is wide but confined, the material strikes one as 
so overpowering that one is reminded involuntarily of a fur- 
nace, and the awakened fancy does not soar towards the infinite, 
but towards limitation. However, since the sun has gone 
down, the picture grows grander from hour to hour. The rim 


248 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


of the crater has become invisible, the scarias are opaque; it 
seems as if the fire stood out against endless space; one believes 
oneself to be looking closely into the seething of the sun. 
For a moment I feel uneasy: to behold such a spectacle is 
really denied to man. I ought to have been consumed at the 
first glimpse. Instead of this, I am lying, free from all danger, 
on the border of the gulf of fire, and at ease, like a god, I 
watch the beginning of all things. 

Somebody speaks of hell. This is a comparison which would 
never enter my head here. It is possible that Vesuvius would 
conjure it up because it threatens a world of rich life with 
destruction; there the fire really symbolises death. Here, 
however, one cannot speak of death, because life is not yet 
born; here one attends those primeval events which took place 
at a time when life was not. Thus one experiences neither 
horror nor delight on the Kilauea, no human sentiment can 
exist here; I feel as the spirit must have felt when he moved 
upon the face of the waters. The thought strikes me: if I were 
to throw myself down into this fire, I could not possibly take 
any harm. As Iam able to look upon it, I am obviously a spirit. 
This fire has absolutely nothing hostile about it, no primeval 
fire has in itself. If all Western myths associate the volcanic 
state with hell, and attribute the latter’s most horrible abor- 
tions to the holiest of all elements, the reason must be sought 
in the fact that their inventors never had any communion with 
the volcanic world; they knew it not. And later on the barbaric 
Christian tendency arose to explain all nature as a medium for 
a distinct purpose, as an instrument for meting out reward or 
punishment. The fiction of the Hawaiians is better here. The 
myth of the Kilauea is as follows: long ago, Pele, a beautiful 
maiden, threw herself into the sea of fire to escape a hideous 
lover. Since then she lives in the crater as its soul, being 
also the guardian goddess of the whole archipelago. The 
Kilauea is never in eruption without a weighty reason: wisely 
does Pele govern the destinies of the isle. She set Kame- 
hameha upon the throne by suffocating his enemies with sul- 
phurous gases. Never does she hurt the innocent. She is a 
kind goddess: whenever, at set periods, the moment approaches 


CHAP. 5'7 ! LAVA FIELDS 249 


when she is forced to overflow, for reasons of her own, she 
warns her children in time; even the white men, who really 
treat her badly, and repeatedly have made themselves more 
obnoxious to her than reverence permits, have never suffered 
misfortune from her hands. More than once, foolhardy 
climbers, who were already in the act of falling, escaped death 
at the last moment, a thing which never could have happened 
without supernatural intervention. 


57 


ON THE DAWA ED EME DOBE ROR ET HE 
KILAUEA 


(Early morning.) 


VERY time when a new day dawns it seems to me as though 
Eithe evolution of the world were starting all over again. 
The vapours and mists wipe out all individual shape. The 
contours grow uncertain. And the great holy stillness, not 
disturbed by so much as the cry of a lonely bird, breathes all 
over nature the atmosphere of the very beginning of things. 
Never have I experienced the feeling of primeval origin as 
strongly as here. Over there, in the clouds, the gulf of fire is 
miraged; fire glows from the sun on to the rocks and crags; 
from the rigid lilac-tinted lava yellow vapours of sulphur rise 
fitfully. And when the sun mounts a little higher, I perceive 
silvery, tropic-birds which circle over the wide and dark soli- 
tude like spirits from a better world. 

The vegetation is also primordial. All plants which flourish 
here love sulphur; curious, fleshy growths, sallow in colour, 
but decked with burning red blossoms. Here and there a 
gigantic fern or a crippled little tree, which has evidently come 
into the world too soon. It cannot have looked very different 
in the age when the earth became the habitation of life for 
the first time. How did it come to be created? It is not 
worth while to ponder this; we cannot follow up this thought 
to the end. Perhaps, after all, the description in the Book of 


250 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


Genesis is the most objective. We shall never get beyond 
the fact that life appeared here as soon as it became possible, 
and then all at once in manifold shapes and forms. How 
very ridiculous science is when it tries to explain away this 
miracle! Would it not be much more wonderful if Wagner 
had, somehow or other, succeeded in fashioning a homunculus 
than if the world was created according to the description 
in the Bible? As if that which is essentially appropriate and 
significant—life—were the result of pure chance? How it 
came to be, I know not. Brahma himself does not know, as 
the beautiful Indian saga shows. And I must acknowledge 
that it would vex me if the whole process could be made 
plausible. I love the miracle; I will have it so; perhaps pre- 
cisely because in so many respects I am a fanatic for exactitude. 
I love Kant above all because his definition of our limitations 
has indirectly proved the existence of an absolutely inconceiv- 
able reality. For me, as for all honest men, it is quite impos- 
sible to imagine a world which could be essentially different 
from the human one, impossible to understand in concreto 
what it means, for instance, that distances in space do not pos- 
sess transient reality. And therefore Iam most heartily thank- 
ful, as soon as IJ think of it, that the primeval beginning can- 
not be explained in any way, that here at least mythology 
will for ever have the final word. But then, one myth is as 
probable as another in so far as it is probable in itself; why 
should not the first day have been exactly like the grey dawn 
of this morning? Deep silence, glowing fire; vapours of water 
and sulphur rising above dark plains of cooling matter. And 
suddenly, for the first time, and yet as if it could not be other- 
wise, the call of the first bird sounding in the distance. 

I imagine myself back in those days when, as a young geolo- 
gist, I wandered through the mountains. It did not last 
long: irresistibly I was drawn away from the stones to the 
living word. How reluctantly I performed in the end the 
tasks which I had undertaken! To-day I would not be opposed 
to returning to my starting-point. How much greater, more 
sublime, wider than any work of man, is nature, even when 
dead! In nature everything has been created in grandeur, is 


CHAP. 57 LAVA FIELDS 251 


sustained in grandeur . . . Mahomet’s words come back to 
my mind: ‘Verily the creation of heaven and earth is a greater 
thing than the creation of man; but most men do not under- 
stand this.? Yes, it is certainly better for us to ponder the 
works of nature than the greatest work of human genius. The 
geologist who contemplates the Alps, recognises with one com- 
prehensive look billions of eventful years; in the mirror of 
intensified moments he actually sees how the mountains grew, 
how one fauna alternated with another, how in the end the 
picture we see to-day was consummated. Thus, he attends in 
spirit the first performance of the grand symphony of life: 
at the beginning only a few single notes were sounded, 
then ever more and fuller voices joined in, complicated melo- 
dies made themselves heard and their place was taken again 
and again by others, according to a plan traced in terms of time, 
which is only comprehensible when viewed from the perfected 
whole. He is not surprised by the seeming antagonism of 
simultaneity and succession, of change and constancy: in 1m- 
mutable types that counterpoint is realised which controls all 
melody inwardly without injuring it in its freedom. And in 
this way the spectacle of nature means much more to him than 
to the most impressionable of artists. If I have any advantage 
over many thinkers, it is the advantage of having been a natu- 
ralist by profession. Philosophers generally study Greek or 
Sanskrit or comparative literature. . . . That is perfectly right, 
but it seems to me that it would further them more to become 
absorbed in the evolution of the world. The music of the 
universe slumbers in the irrational laws of crystallisation; all 
artistic ideals are symbolically preconceived in the germ of the 
plasma. From the first breath of desire which trembled 
through shapeless chaos, an unbroken chain of developments 
leads to the Iliad and the Parthenon. 


252 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


58 
At THE CRAPPER ATYNIGH T 


o-NIGHT I keep guard at the creation of the world. Above 
el Pee the stars glitter in infinity; at an immeasurable dis- 
tance below me there surges the sea of fire: it is so far away 
that its boundaries may include a universe. I do not tire. 
What goes on before me is more than the most powerful 
destiny. 

For hours I have been looking, with my attention at a 
stretch, down into the crater, attempting to become absorbed 
in its dynamic principle. In the qualitative sense the problem 
is not difficult: the forces which are at work here are all effective 
in my body, their laws are also my laws. But their measure, 
nevertheless, makes the problem impossible. Great quantity 
involves a new quality. No matter how much the atom may 
be a solar system ‘in itself, there is nevertheless a difference 
between it and the star of which it forms a fraction. I cannot 
experience inwardly the degree of intensity of the known forces 
which are expressed in the operation of the volcano; it is easy 
to describe, to understand and to explain it, but that is not 
what I mean. 

How much more easily could the creation of the world be 
understood according to any myth! Every one of them, even 
the most childish, is humanly more probable than the phe- 
nomenology of radium, for the creation from nothingness by 
the will of a god is the heightened reflection of that which 
every man performs at every moment. I think of something, 
and immediately it stands there in my world of mental images; 
surely that means that I have spontaneously created an entity 
out of nonentity. I have achieved something just as immense 
as Jahveh when he created the world. And what I thus 
create is also ‘very good’ from the start, at any rate much better 
than I could ever make it by constructive thought. The ‘non- 
entity’ from which I have magically evoked an ‘entity’ can, of 
course, only be conceived materially; thus I am in principle not 
behind the Demiurge, even in this sense. Of course, the 


CHAP. 58 THE CRATER 253 


substance of thought is much more formative than that which 
constitutes mountains. But if it is possible at all to influence 
matter by mind, then it must be possible to do so with heavier 
masses, quite apart from the probable fact that ultimately they 
consist of thought substance too. Indirectly, man achieves a 
good deal in this direction, but I am convinced that he could 
achieve even directly much more than is considered possible 
to-day— hardly less than the Indian Yogis assert. Concentra- 
tion of attention is the concentration of psychic energy; a neu- 
rasthenic subject cannot concentrate himself: where then is the 
breach which shows the creation after the manner of Jehovah 
to be impossible in principle? If I, by perfect concentration 
of all the forces over which my consciousness has power in the 
best circumstances, issued the command: let there be light, then 
there probably would be light. 

For a moment I hold on to this thought. It amuses me to try 
to hold the eruption in check by my will-power. I feel a little 
annoyed that I do not succeed, no matter how much I would 
regret it, on the other hand, if this magnificent spectacle before 
me came to an untimely end. What is the cause of my in- 
ability? Presumably a triviality, a trick; probably, given suffi- 
cient knowledge of nature, a volcano could be extinguished 
with just as little expenditure of effort as an electric bulb; 
probably it could be done quite directly without any apparatus 
to assist me. No matter how immense the powers below me 
are, the greatest of all, the intra-atomic energy, is not at work. 
If I could succeed, which is surely not difficult, in destroying 
but one cubic foot of lava, the volcano would have to be ex- 
ceedingly careful as to its future. 

No, there is no trace of life here. What is life? An imma- 
terial principle which forms matter. It should, therefore, be 
possible to create a soul for the volcano. I incline more and 
more to the view that life is omnipresent and externalises itself 
as soon as the necessary material conditions seem to be fulfilled 
(which conditions, of course, life creates itself, at any rate 
partially). In the same way, mental personality is revealed 
as soon as the brain has become mature; in the same way, ex- 
pression animates a picture’ as soon as a certain line has been 


254 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


drawn; just such a profound meaning creeps into a meaningless 
sentence when but a single word is altered. And what is es- 
tranging and almost frightening is that this animation can be 
brought about by mere accident. Decidedly, I can hardly con- 
ceive of greater joys than to create souls. With every idea 
which man puts into the world, matter receives a new signifi- 
cance. In all seriousness: how would it be if I gave a soul to 
this volcano? But perhaps it has one already, according to the 
Hawaiian myth, and I am merely wanting in the organ with 
which to recognise it. 

. . . Now the night is far spent. The lava has risen stead- 
ily, melting down ever wider circles of the mainland. The 
darker the background becomes, the more brightly do the 
flames shimmer. The red colour—predominant during the day 
—has now disappeared. Now the whole is a symphony in 
black and gold. Strange! Here in the face of this flaming 
world I am reminded of Japanese lacquer-work. Apparently 
it is the same principle which, in the one case, ekes out gold, 
and in the other fiery lava upon the dusky background. 

. . . [have dozed a little after all. Was it the echo of an 
unconscious dream, induced by the conversation of the tour- 
ists? As I open my eyes, the sea of flame seems to be peopled 
by naked bodies. That was meant to be hell. But no: not one 
of the burning sinners seems to be tortured. The flames do 
them no damage; they cling to them as harmlessly as shadows. 

. . . Dawn breaks. Once more, as on the first day of crea- 
tion, heaven and earth are divided from one another. The 
belated moon hurries, insecure and pale, away from the laugh- 
ing sun in a sweeping curve. Below in the cauldron the ebb 
has succeeded to the flow. The sea has shrunk together, seems 
inert, almost dead. The gold has been changed into a dull 
red. The black background, which but a little while ago was 
a endless world, reveals itself now as a dirty grey crust of 

ross. 


CHAP. 59 BAY OF WAIKIKI 255 


59 
THE BAYZORIWALK IKI 


Cae Greeks relegated the blessed to an island home: what 
could prove better than this the infallibility of their 
power of imagination? In the human sense, only the conceiv- 
able is possible, and an existence such as the blessed should 
lead seems conceivable only upon a lonely isle in the sea. In 
perfect seclusion extravagant wishes cannot live; there, nothing 
happens which could become history, there time means noth- 
ing any more. Earthbound man, especially the Greek with 
his indomitable creative desire, would pine away in such a 
place; but to the blessed, who have escaped both desires and 
time, it would signify paradise. 

Life in Hawaii involuntarily assumes the nature of a myth. 
The European, the essentially historical being, seems out of 
place here like a crawling fly on a water-colour drawing. The 
Hawaiian, however, who fits into the picture, appears strangely 
unreal; or real, rather, in the sense of dream-experience. 
There is hardly a difference between that which I see with my 
eyes and what I read in the old heroic sagas. These men re- 
semble exactly those who live only in mythology: warm-hearted 
and careless, light-minded and good, frittering away their life 
from feast to feast; and at the same time terrible in war, cruel 
and merciless, once it comes to fighting. They live, on the 
one hand, on that which tree and shrub provide them with 
gratuitously, harmless like butterflies; on the other hand, they 
are cannibals, or were cannibals, at any rate, a hundred years 
ago. The gods of Olympus were not different. King Kame- 
hameha, the Alexander of the South Seas, whose deeds are 
exalted in a thousand songs, was a ruler like Zeus, great, 
violent, cruel, and at the same time good and harmless, light- 
hearted, on the whole irresponsible as a child. The battles 
which took place under his leadership—combats of the bloodiest 
kind, in which whole tribes perished—were nevertheless in- 
tended more as tournaments than as real battles; or as battles 
such as the gods fought among each other before Troy. These 


256 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


men of flesh and blood treated death with no more seriousness 
than the Olympians. 

This is what the first men should have been like, according 
to the unanimous report of all mythology. It is, of course, 
impossible that they were really like that, but it seems highly 
significant to me that this is the nature which fiction has at- 
tributed to them without exception. The first men were not 
primitive, but the children of the gods, and this means that they 
were simultaneously more and less than we human beings are. 
That the gods—or, more precisely, those gods who were di- 
vinities after the manner of the Olympians—were simultane- 
ously more as well as less than we are, appears from all the 
myths. But the Indians alone have known how to show in 
what this plus and this minus consists: of the three elements, 
satwa, rajas and tamas, which are said to compose the world, 
the second, rajas, energy, falls in excess to the lot of the gods, 
whereas they entirely lack the third, inertia. Since, however, 
there is no inertia, since power meets with no resistance, the 
gods are, with all the advantages which complete lack of limi- 
tation bestows, limited in a twofold sense: they are superficial, 
irresponsible, since no action touches their inner being, no 
matter what its effects are in other spheres; and they are in- 
capable of growing beyond their divinity. Whereas man, pre- 
cisely by virtue of the spirit of gravity, can wrestle his way 
through to enlightenment (the predominance of Satwa), the 
god only succeeds in this if he is born again as the son of man, 
and if he takes advantage of the opportunities of this condi- 
tion. I cannot conceive a better definition of the concept of a 
Nature-God; it is precisely in the Indian sense that such a god 
is really less than man. And primordial man, the child of the 
gods, is, in precisely the same sense, more and also less than 
we are. We, however, notice, above all, the ways in which 
they are ‘more,’ which is what always happens when an actual 
condition is compared with an imagined one; for this reason, 
the primordial mythical state strikes us as ideal. We long for 
freedom from all limitations, for irresponsibility, no matter 
what price we would have to pay for it, simply because our 
life is nothing else but responsibility. Thus, even I have 
actually caught myself in the act of admiring Hawaiians. It 


CHAP. 59 BAY OF WAIKIKI 257 


seems to me to be only superhuman, not subhuman, to be 
able to live so like the gods. 

I wrote this late at night, after returning from a Hawaiian 
banquet. It was wild and simultaneously full of lyric charm. 
A bard chanted ancient sagas with a strangely affecting voice, 
while the guests, gathered round a single dish, tore fishes to 
pieces with their hands like beasts, and feather-bedecked 
dancers swayed their hips in fantastic curves without letting 
the upper portion of their bodies and their heads betray even 
the slightest motion. 


+ 


THIs is no doubt the island of the blessed. Day after day 
the sun shines, giving life to mountain and valley alike. Eve- 
ning upon evening, cool breezes play in the tops of the coco 
palms. Year in, year out, the trees and shrubs are in bloom 
and the trees become laden with fruit. And above all the 
ocean belongs entirely to the world of the immortals. The 
breakers roll up thunderingly and threateningly, and yet man 
plays with them, as if they were nothing but foam. Out there 
by the reefs they are so enormous that they might frighten a 
whale. But the eternally cheerful Hawaiians are not afraid: 
they make use of the waves as if they were riding animals, 
they chase towards the shore upon them, balancing and vault- 
ing along the crests, like Tritons in an idyll of the sea. 

Are these handsome brown men, who feel as much at home 
in the ocean as fishes do, men like ourselves? Probably not 
quite; each element develops special beings. Man as a rider 
or as a diver, as an inhabitant of the desert and the mountain, 
is every time a different creature. Among men living upon 
the water I have so far only known its conqueror, that is to say, 
the land animal which has subjugated water through cunning; 
the genuinely amphibious human being can be found to-day 
only in the South Seas. But here he is so perfect in his way that 
he seems superhuman for this very reason. The Hawaiian 
who acts as my guide on the ocean is fair as a god, of gigantic 
stature, and a famous shark fighter; he is said to have put out 
with his spear the eyes of every shark whom he has met. At 
the same time, he is gentle and mild, and in the evening, when 


258 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


the coco palms sigh in the wind, he sings melancholy tunes to 
himself. Once more my thoughts roam over to distant Greece. 
With what marvellous certainty did the Greek imagination 
create! What nature has manifested in the South Seas is the 
mirrored reflection of the Greek ideal. Never upon earth have 
gods more probable, more capable of life, been invented than 
those of Greece. 
+ 

THis could hardly have happened otherwise. The Elysian 
fields are the realm of subjectivity; here the mood of the mo- 
ment creates reality and transforms all reality into moods; 
here the world changes instantaneously into what the whims of 
the hour imagine it to be. What usually only flashes like a 
meteor through my consciousness now abides in it; caprices 
agglomerate, light wishes become profound, a star is being 
condensed out of the uncertain mists. ‘Thus, in the midst of 
the play of waves, in the paradise of the palm groves and the 
gigantic purple flowers, love has been born in me. 

Does this mean something serious, something real? How 
am I to know? ‘The boundary line between reality and the 
creations of fancy cannot be drawn with certainty anywhere. 
How often has reality faded into a dream for me, and again, 
how often has a dream become reality! How ofte» have I 
consciously imposed fiction upon life by relating indit erent 
human beings to fictitious combinations: as long as these re- 
sisted the process the former were highly significant for me. 
And how often has a situation sufficed to awaken a feeling in 
me, which disappeared as soon as its stimulus had gone! It is 
never really different. A passion whose fundamental motive 
is wild desire, is no deeper and possesses no surer ground than 
a caprice of the intellect; here, too, the emotion depends upon 
external circumstances, and evanesces when they have become 
changed. Essentially psychic reality and imagination can 
hardly be discerned from each other; the deciding factor is, 
where the centre of man’s consciousness actually rests. If he 
identifies himself with his natural instincts, then of course he is 
his passions; if he identifies himself with some fiction, then 
this is supreme reality to him if his consciousness is rooted essen- 


CHAP. 60 TO AMERICA 259 


tially in racial ties, then the family is his real ego. In order 
that love can imply absolute reality at all, man must feel him- 
self unconditionally identical with his personality. I can no 
longer do this. It does happen at rhythmic intervals that 
certain instincts gain the upper hand and a secondary centre 
constitutes itself as the focus of my being. But this condition 
does not endure; once the period is completed my consciousness 
assumes its normal position again. From this, however, my 
person appears to me as ‘outer world’ and I cannot treat it 
more seriously than any other external circumstances with which 
inhayve ito, reckon... ./. 

For the time being, I tarry in the realm of subjectivity. 
Then the love which was within this realm will more than 
ever prove to be fancy; it probably has no objective back- 
ground whatsoever. And yet, as long as the moment in which 
it rules me lasts, it seems real enough to me. Once again I 
experience that strange condition in which the universe appears 
to be completely determined by a few personal co-ordinates, 
once more I am overcome by that uncertainty which, I imagine, 
seizes every man who suddenly finds himself floating on the 
sea of feelings—an element which, in contrast to woman, is by 
nature so very unfamiliar to him. And yet I know, in the 
midst of being adrift, that I could never be drowned in this 
sea. In these mythical surroundings all life assumes a mythi- 
cal nature. Nereids and Tritons are not strangers to love, but 
what men take seriously is a game to them; their love lacks 
the element of inertia, the earthly fetters, it implies no thral- 
dom in the German sense of ‘Gemiit.”? It is just the same as 
that love which to-day controls my heart and soul and senses. 
At this moment it transfigures the world for me; but I doubt 
if I would suffer it if its object suddenly ceased to exist... . 


60 
TOWARDS AMERICA 


N o time must be lost now: before I reach California I must 
have disentangled my soul from all its links to the East; 
otherwise, impure tones will resound in me, just as if a chord, 


260 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


beautiful in itself, were drawn over by a foot pedal into a 
melody in another key. I must rally all my forces, for this 
transposition will not be easy. Not only do I feel no longing 
for America—I dread this country, I have a horror of it. But 
personal inclinations and disinclinations are never to be taken 
seriously; they only prove the limitations of him who possesses 
them. Without doubt the United States are worth seeing, pos- 
sibilities are realised there which exist nowhere else, and it is 
only worth while to tarry with the positive side of things. 

If, on the other hand, I land in San Francisco in a negative 
and unsympathetic mood, then I will not become aware of the 
positive elements, nor will I be able to absorb myself in the 
spirit of the country. It is not possible without loving surren- 
der to understand anything at all; as long as the slightest in- 
clination to criticism remains in the centre of consciousness, it 
is hopeless to do justice to what is strange. How am I to 
manage to change my attitude fundamentally in the course of 
a brief week? I must undertake something like a psychological 
analysis; discover what the real cause of my personal feelings 
is. When I have found this out, and thereby the insufficiency 
of my aversion—for there is nothing which could objectively 
justify subjective contrariness—then I will no doubt be master 
of my undesirable mood. 

When I consider the matter carefully, I find that my an- 
tipathy is not directed to the American element as such, but to 
that of the Westerner in general; and only against the Ameri- 
cans in so far as they are the most extreme expression of the 
Westerner. We Europeans imagine ourselves to be divided 
from the Americans by more than the ocean: therefore, the 
knowledge that the Asiatic recognises a difference only in so 
far as Americans appear to them as the most typical Europeans 
was all the more instructive to me; in his view, they embody 
no different spirit from ours, but the same in a more explicit 
form. Undoubtedly he is right; the essential qualities of a 
people from the point of view of its distinguishing elements, 
are always recognised best by the foreigner. I must therefore 
presuppose that it is the nature of the Westerner which I dis- 
like in the appearance of Americanism. 


CHAP. 60 _ tt) TOU AIMEE REL CAA 261 


What is this nature, as differentiated from that of the Asiatic? 
The usual catchwords of the materialistic West, as opposed to 
the spiritualistic East, of our lack of dignity, hastiness and 
greed, as opposed to the superiority to the world, the dignity 
and calm of the Oriental, of our quest for action as opposed 
to their depth of recognition—these are not commensurate with 
the problem. Even the most justified objection against our 
nature is refuted by pointing to the fact that our idealism is 
undoubtedly the greater, and for this reason everything which 
does not exist in us may yet come to pass. It may easily hap- 
pen that the materialism of our age will one day be looked back 
upon as a profitable stage upon the way to spiritualisation, for 
the material embodies an ideal to the Westerner and there- 
fore draws him upward, whether he will or not. The fact that 
he expends greater attention upon the means to life than upon 
life itself does not differentiate him essentially from the Ori- 
ental. We too long ultimately for the one thing which is 
needful; this longing is becoming increasingly the dominant 
factor in our strife, only we wish to perfect appearance over 
and above this, and if this determination appears in the fore- 
ground at the moment, it is due to the fact that man cannot 
pursue two aims simultaneously with equal energy. In any 
case it is a mistake to reproach us with our endeavour to perfect 
the world of appearances: on the contrary, our superiority rests 
upon this attempt, for the Eastern proceeding of turning away 
from it for the sake of its significance is poor in comparison 
with ours, which wishes to express all significance in appear- 
ance. It is true that we have not yet realised our ideal, but 
we are sure to realise it one day, for we are moving directly 
towards it. No, the circumstances described by the usual catch- 
phrases do not determine my antipathy; of this I am sure, for 
the efficiency of our civilisation has never struck me as a nega- 
tive factor. Of noise and bustle there is more than a sufficiency 
even in the East; but in the West they lead to more. 

We are obviously concerned with something else; and this 
something else, which really determines my aversion, is, if I 
judge correctly, the circumstance that all forms have become 
fluid in the Westerner; this must be it, for I feel no disinclina- 


262 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


tion towards those who, as individuals or types of classes, repre- 
sent a perfect manifestation. ‘The opposition between East 
and West with which I am concerned in these observations 
only dates from the time when we began to proceed upon our 
rapid march, or, expressed more precisely, it has only existed 
at those periods during which we were in a state of rapid transi- 
tion. In idea this condition has always existed: in principle the 
West has always been mobile, intent upon new creations and 
new manifestations; the East has always inclined towards a 
static state of equilibrium, just as, from the point of view 
of the Greek Orthodox Church, Catholicism and Protestantism 
appear as the children of one spirit (the Reformation, with 
its consequences, seemed in its eyes only the ultimate expression 
of that instinct for renewal and change which has characterised 
the Western Church from the beginning), so it is surely 
possible to prove the seed of the opposition which exists to-day 
between the East and the West everywhere and at all times. 
But this seed has only matured lately. Between the days of 
our classical antiquity and the flourishing periods of Eastern 
culture, between the France of the seventeenth century, and 
China, of, say, the Sung Dynasty, there was only a difference 
in appearance, not in being, as far as actuality is concerned; 
even in the West the static ideal has predominated until the 
beginning of the recent era, even in ancient Greece and in Italy 
of the Renaissance; for life there, no matter how full of rest- 
less movement it was, was gauged by values whose validity was 
independent of time. If we modern Europeans regard East 
and West as a fundamental opposition, we do not in fact oppose 
the East so much to the West as the classical and medieval 
ideal to that of modernity, which is essentially Protestant; 
and this means that we oppose the ideal of perfection to that 
of progress. Thus I would appear to have found the key to 
the problem. I prefer Orientalism to Occidentalism because 
I value perfection in any form higher than success. 

In modern man, and first and foremost in the Americans, all 
forms have become fluid. In the new world, the time-hon- 
oured differences between classes and types no longer apply; 
what used to be something final appears, where it exists to-day 


CHAP. 60 - (TOVMAMERICA 263 


at all, merely as a step, on which every one can ascend or de- 
scend. Thus, forms of life have become parts played on the 
stage. A theatrical part, however, possesses no formative 
power; one assumes or discards it like a garment; one cannot 
take it quite seriously. This ironic relation to formation would 
represent a highest ideal if the profoundest consciousness of 
being went hand in hand with it, and the emphasis of life were 
laid upon it. In the case of modern man the emphasis lies on 
something else: it lies on the changing of parts in itself, on 
getting on in the world. For this reason he does not represent 
a higher kind of man. 

Every now and again I have met minds who saw the chief 
objection against modernity in the fact that it prefers quantity 
to quality; that it recognises no kind of boundaries, whereas 
personal limitation in some form or other is the fundamental 
condition of all embodiment of values. This objection, of 
course, is brought forward rightly; what I have said myself is 
essentially the same in meaning. But the description which 
regards quantity and quality as quasi-eternal and opposites 
falsifies the truth. The fact that modern man appears in- 
satiable does not imply a misfortune, because even this Gzteipov 
will inevitably find its limits at some juncture, which will 
automatically bring about self-limitation; and in the meantime 
the quantitative standard will rise. The tendency to the purely 
quantitative is a temporary phenomenon, and will probably 
translate itself of its own accord from external as well as in- 
ternal causes, into other tendencies as soon as new humanity 
has its years of indiscretion behind it. It proves lack of imagi- 
nation to perceive a catastrophe in the transgression of the time- 
honoured boundaries, for not one of them embodies an ideal 
in itself. In themselves they all are disadvantages; the further 
they are removed the better. What is really serious is that our 
age confuses perfection and success; that it does not deny the 
old values, but that it imagines that it is realising the same 
values on a higher level than any earlier epoch; that it regards 
its condition not as temporary but as ideal. This circumstance 
causes the inferiority of its representatives. 

Nature realises and perfects itself in manifestation. Where 


264 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


it is not yet manifested, that is to say in a preliminary con- 
dition, there being is not revealed in its purity: hence the 
immaturity of the Westerner compared with the Oriental. 
But the most immature young colt, where he does not wish to 
be anything but a colt, may seem very lovable; he appears 
repugnant only where he pretends to be a complete human 
being, and this is what characterises the Americans. In Europe 
it is being understood more and more that the fluid condition, 
in which men happen to be, is only not an evil when it means a 
transitional stage, and Europeans therefore strive beyond 
fluidity, for the examples of a higher kind of humanity are 
not far away. The American only guesses in exceptional cases 
that there is anything higher than progress. It is for this 
reason that he seems more barbaric than any one else. 

I would thus appear to have determined why I do not 
favour Occidentalism, and I cannot disapprove my feelings. At 
the same time, I have found the starting-point from which I 
ought to be able to change my negative attitude into a positive 
one. 

In China I had arrived at the conclusion that the Chinese 
were at a higher cultural, but upon a lower natural level than 
we are; that the higher degree of perfection in them went 
hand in hand with a lower degree of progressiveness. From 
this it follows that if, from our natural level, we attain the same 
degree of perfection as the Chinese, we would be altogether 
their superiors, and this would justify the transitional con- 
dition. The road to a new form from a completed one leads 
only through formlessness, and from one perfection to another 
only through insufficiency. Modern Europe has broken the 
old forms. In so doing it renounced for a long period the 
possibility of appearing perfect; it has fallen back into bar- 
barism, in the midst of which it still is, and into which it will 
penetrate presumably ever further for a long time; from the 
point of view of perfection, there is certainly no progress 
among us. But equally certainly, we are progressing from the 
point of view of natural evolution, and this places possibilities 
for accomplishment into the world, which are not innate in the 
great peoples of the East. These possibilities are still so far 


CHAP. 60 _ TO AMERICA 265 


from realisation that only the embryologist can predetermine 
them with any certainty; what is revealed to our vision to-day 
is ugly on the whole. But our condition promises much: no 
man capable of insight can deny it. From this point of view I 
will henceforth face Westernism. 


+> 


1F I am not mistaken, it was in Adyar that I discussed at 
length the general relation between the desires for perfection 
and for progress. I then laid the main stress on the fact that 
ambition to advance biologically leads directly away from 
possible perfection, that a desire for perfection, conversely, 
indirectly facilitates progress. But these simple considerations 
do not exhaust the question; the connection between both 
tendencies of evolution is manifolc and complex. To-day I 
want to attain clarity concerning the most curious relations 
which I am able to recognise in ther. 

If I compare the accomplished cultures of the East with our 
growing ones, I find that the inner man is incomparably more 
cultured within the former, but that in the latter that which 
distinguishes the highest subjectivity in the East seems to 
have been externalised into an objective power. I do not be- 
lieve that any not very highly gifted Christian knows how to 
love as profoundly as an Indian Bhakta, feels as humanely as 
the typical Buddhist, or has saturated his soul with such moral 
feeling as a distinguished Confucian; on the other hand, among 
us, love, morality and humanity have become objective powers, 
and this cannot be said of them in the East. Whereas in our 
case even the man who is inwardly coarse is forced, to a certain 
degree, to act according to the highest ideals, nothing compels 
the Asiatic to appear cultured where he is not, and for this 
reason the behaviour in practice of the average man in the 
East leaves more to be desired than that of the same class in 
the West. On the whole, we act better than we are. 

We have run ahead of our being by our institutions. Our 
intellect has recognised as desirable for every one what only a 
saint would strive after from inner and personal stimulus, and 
it has invented a machinery which secures the realisation of 


266 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


what is desirable automatically. The disadvantages of this 
method are obvious: the possibility of realising what is good 
externally makes us superficial, for, where this opportunity 
exists, man grows accustomed to expect all salvation from 
external circumstances, and neglects his inner culture corre- 
spondingly. But our method also has very great advantages, 
and I wish to tarry in their contemplation to-day, being con- 
cerned with awakening a sympathetic attitude towards the 
West. Every soul is capable of manifold formation, is devel- 
oped differently according to which of its component parts 
gains predominance, and the form which it finally assumes 
depends to a high degree upon the surroundings in which 
it develops—just as, in savage times, most people become 
savage, because all opportanities are favourable to the brute 
in them, so the best gains the upper hand in most people in 
favourable circumstances; for this reason it is fortunate if 
external circumstances are as propitious as possible. It is 
undoubtedly possible to influence inner faculties externally; 
in fact, in the case of beirigs incapable of insight, this is the 
only way to make them participate in the highest. The ancient 
cultures demanded accordingly that the immature should 
show blind obedience to the men of knowledge, and it was 
surely much better to subject the mass to this tutelage rather 
than to leave them to their own devices, all the more so as they 
did not know of a third possibility. Our civilisation has called 
such a third possibility into life: within the sphere of modern 
organisation of external life, goodness proves itself to be more 
and more profitable; appreciation of his own advantage makes 
even the blackguard reliable in business to-day. The bluntest 
mind is being forced by experience to the recognition that in 
our world it is better in the long run to behave in accordance 
with our ideals. No matter if this condition is induced by 
the most brutal utilitarianism, the ideal demands have the 
effect of positive forces, and they form the soul in such a way 
that an average modern individual who has grown up in not 
altogether adverse circumstances involuntarily thinks more 
humanely and more justly than his forbears. Now a natural 
evolution of humanity in the moral sense demonstrably does 


CHAP. 60 i 1 OFLA IEE RAL CoA 267 


not take place; their inherited moral temperament is on the 
whole just the same as it was thousands of years ago; all ethical 
progress of the masses is due to spiritual influences which, as 
such, concern only the individual, and which, seen from the 
angle of physiology, come from outside. For this reason, the 
success conditioned by our system, by which the spiritually 
immature individual, no matter for what reason, professes 
virtue by his own incentive, represents an exceedingly im- 
portant phenomenon. 

Thus an inner force is awakened in him which strives volun- 
tarily in the direction in which external pressure directs him, 
and in this way the general level rises slowly but irresistibly. 
According to the Oriental system, the man who is born imma- 
ture must remain so; and no matter how high the condition of 
the mature, a process of growth seems impossible for the 
masses; humanity as a whole remains upon its original level of 
existence. Within our system the possibility exists that pre- 
cisely the mass may attain to the position where hitherto only 
men born in favourable circumstances used to stand; and this 
possibility has been created by the very fact that external cir- 
cumstances suggest to the immature to emulate what is good 
by their own initiative, so that spiritual powers can now lead 
him upwards beyond the limits of his inherited nature. Thanks 
to this fact, an extraordinarily high percentage of white men 
born on a low level have risen to a height during one century, 
a height such as the Shastras make the Indian Cudra hope for 
only after thousands of years of restless struggle through in- 
numerable reincarnations. 

This shows very clearly in what sense the desire for progress 
really does benefit perfection. No doubt perfection cannot be 
reached by this path. The barbarity of modern man is ex- 
plained by this. But the striving after progress within a cul- 
tural system in which the highest ideals operate as objective 
forces, helps more and more people to attain to the natural 
level on which in India the Brahmin stands alone. He too is 
not born as a perfect individual; his advantage consists in his 
better heritage, which makes it possible for him to strive 
directly without deviation towards the highest earthly ideal; 


268 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


our cultural system may one day develop so far that all men 
will start life as Brahmins. 

This must be placed to the credit of the ideal of equality, no 
matter how much in other ways it lowers humanity and makes 
it superficial. If the present condition represented a final stage, 
then it would have to be opposed by all means; the levelling 
downwards which democracy inevitably effects, brings with it 
an enormous lowering of the value of humanity, and the con- 
tinuation of this process would spell ruin. However, it will 
not continue; democracy only signifies a working hypothesis, 
which will disappear of its own accord when the time is ripe. 
As soon as the general level has been raised sufficiently, new 
layers will arise, new mountains will be piled up, new valleys 
will be hollowed out; only the new aristocracy will be based 
upon a higher level than the old one was, whose qualities will 
now have become the inheritance of the masses. 


+ 


IN fact, there is a great deal of good in democracy; every 
outlook based upon the idea of evolution tends to produce 
optimistic men, and nothing accelerates success as much as 
self-confidence. What differentiates modern evolution from 
all its previous forms is the briefness of the period of time it 
requires to achieve evolutionary power. The old Indian phi- 
losophy, which teaches, just as modern democracy does, that 
every one is capable in principle of the highest, and that the 
castes are only stages on the path of progress, limited this 
magna charta of freedom, declaring that every given life must 
remain within its inherited confines and that the boundaries 
of caste can only be escaped from life to life through the transi- 
tionary stage of death; in the same way, every aristocrat who 
is not altogether a fool will allow that a rise to a higher level 
does take place in families, so that it would be unjust to deny 
to the most advanced acceptance into his social community— 
but at the same time he will abide by his belief that at least 
three generations are required in order to produce a gentle- 
man. Modern democracy, however, asserts that this process 
can be fulfilled in the course of one life. 


CHAP. 60 TO AMERICA 269 


It is certain, on the one hand, that such rapid growth is not 
salutary; very few people can stand being transplanted from a 
narrow into a wide frame; if it were otherwise, then modern 
Europeans and Americans would seem less crude. On the 
other hand, however, the democratic belief strengthens opti- 
mism so immensely that it develops into an elemental power, 
whose virtue makes the apparently impossible possible. It 
brings about what even to-day is not infrequently ascribed to 
the ‘original equality of all men,’ that the old barriers, erected 
by birth, seem really less justified than heretofore; thanks to 
this power, it is actually true that the process of evolution 
may be abbreviated. And if at first only the disadvantages of 
the liquefaction of the old forms strike one, one should remem- 
ber that this state of affairs will be altered after a short period; 
in advanced countries there will ere long be no very low layers 
of the people at all; every one will be schooled and even cul- 
tured to a certain degree. And if this event has only seen one 
generation pass, then upstarts in the old sense will no longer 
exist, for no one will any longer be quite unprepared for a 
higher position in life. The democratic ideal brings about a 
spiritual rise of the lower strata of the people; according to the 
system of cross-breeding, they will very soon have been en- 
nobled on a large scale. And once this has been attained, then 
the belief in equality will pass away of its own accord, and the 
basis will have been found for the aristocratic order of the 
future. 

Among the sages of ancient India the power of enjoyment 
was regarded as one of the essential qualities which a youth 
had to possess in order to be regarded as worthy of acceptance 
as a Chela. This is only another expression for having an 
optimistic temperament. He who seemed suited for accept- 
ance was pointed the way along which to advance as far in 
the course of one single life as he would otherwise only have 
done in thousands of years by passing through many incarna- 
tions; even the Indian philosophy thus admits the possibility 
of abbreviated evolution. But it affirms this possibility only 
for one in a million; democratic philosophy presupposes it for 
every one. This seems bold. But when one remembers how 


270 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


low the highest ideal is which democracy has developed hith- 
erto, compared with the Indian ideals, then one feels inclined to 
agree. This ideal might perhaps be achieved by every one. 
And once they have attained to it, then higher ideals will rise 
upon their mental horizon of their own accord. 


+ 


WHERE more than ten Americans are gathered together, one 
may be certain that one will be a crank, an original person 
of the eccentric kind. Even on this steamer I have discovered 
one: a missionary whose speciality is the belief in demons. 
He is said to have seen in China how the spirits of dead girls 
took possession of others, and how baptism alone can pre- 
vent this calamity; on the strength of this idea, and the con- 
clusions he has drawn from it, he has travelled about ever 
since. While, in a sympathetic mood, I was thinking about 
this phenomenon, I remembered that I had never once met a 
crank amongst Asiatics. The fakir, regarded externally, might 
well be taken for an eccentric: but his kind is quite impersonal; 
he pursues an eccentric system without being eccentric himself 
in the very least. The specifically individual note is lacking. 

This note predominates among us; all the more the more 
typically Western we are. And the crank flourishes among us 
in the same proportion. The striving for individualisation 
cannot lead to valuable results among average men; they only 
become eccentric when they wish to be ‘themselves,’ and appear 
less accomplished than any types, be they ever so limited, be- 
cause tradition is always wiser than the mediocre individual. 
But, on the other hand, really great innovators can only arise 
where every one wants to be ‘himself,’ where the legitimacy 
of this aspiration is presupposed; in old China an Edison 
would have been inconceivable. The same circumstances which 
favour the caricature of the eccentric also benefit the genius. 
Regarded superficially, he too is a crank. The struggle to be 
different is the necessary presupposition of all inventive 
originality. 

Therefore, we must probably acquiesce in the fact that we 
have to purchase our higher originality in individual cases at 





CHAP. 60 © TO AMERICA ai 


the expense of a greater imperfection of the average. Every 
innovation gua innovation is inimical to culture in so far as 
culture signifies the having-turned-to-flesh of a given spirit, 
and the individual in process of formation has not yet attained 
this condition. The struggle for innovation, moreover, makes 
people superficial; the man whose attention is pinned to the 
transformation of appearance easily loses contact with his 
depth. The more inventive we are, the more superficial we 
become, and if we should continue in this evolutionary direc- 
tion we might come to a bad end. But I cannot believe that 
this process will continue for long. I am convinced, on the 
contrary, that our loss of profundity has the same meaning as 
money put into the improvement of a farm without showing 
returns to begin with: the temporary loss really means invest- 
ment. New organs are developed in us at enormous expense; 
where heretofore the group was the bearer of all cultural 
thought, the individual is to take on this rdle henceforth. This 
reorganisation brings about a temporary renunciation of the 
harvests which were secured by the old order. But, once the 
new organisation is in full swing, then the farm will probably 
yield ten times more. White humanity will hardly consist of 
nothing but Edisons in the future, but in all probability the 
number of cranks will continually decrease and make way for 
a new type, which, on the one hand, is as genuine as the old- 
class type, and which, on the other, will appear as self-deter- 
mined as the most extreme modern individualist. Only the 
superficial individual professes individualism, the profound 
one directly feels his relationship with the whole. Thus, the 
future will seemingly lead to a re-establishment of the old 
order. The eccentrics will be reduced, the average individuals 
will seem more balanced. And yet it will be an entirely new 
state of affairs: every one will be an individuality. Then indi- 
vidual form will make the same profundity possible for the 
mass that hitherto only the typical form has done. 

I am writing in these days as if I were an evolutionist, as if I 
believed as firmly in progress as a Yankee. This is really so 
in so far as Westerners are concerned, and so far as there can 
be any question of progress at all. It seems certain that our 


oy THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


concept of progress is not adapted to the processes of nature, 
and this consideration disposes of Spencer’s theory. Not only 
do plants and animals remain the same by their own virtue 
through zons of time and change only in reaction to a transient 
outer world: the same thing is also true of human beings 
everywhere where no physiological ‘beyond’ controls their 
lives; thus, Russian history from the fifteenth century until 
yesterday, surveyed from the point of view of man and his 
motives, shows nothing but repetitions. But the theory of 
evolution would never have found so much support if it were 
not in accordance with the intellect. Intellect is essentially 
purposeful, necessarily progressive; it is never at rest, it Is 
incapable of contenting itself, every piece of knowledge at- 
tained points to new recognitions, which lead straight away 
towards the ideal. Therefore, where intellect dominates life, 
life must progress according to the laws of the intellect. We 
Westerners have pledged ourselves completely to intellect; 
our peculiar nature makes it possible for us to follow its peculiar 
momentum to a high degree, intellectual ideals are our aim; 
we therefore really become changed in accordance with the 
postulates of progress. To what extent this will take place 
remains to be seen; physical nature is in itself conservatively 
minded and may set insurmountable barriers to the demands 
of the mind. Nevertheless, indefinite progress is conceivable, 
and as the contents of a faith are real forces, and since ideals 
are extremely potent centres of gravitation, the future of white 
humanity may yet bring fulfilment with it which the present 
has never promised. 


> 


I cannot become friendly with the missionaries in spite of 
the best intentions. There are no doubt great and noble men 
in this profession, but they are sown sparsely and they then 
fulfil it correspondingly badly: they never really want to ‘con- 
vert.’ It is and remains a limitation to impose one’s opinion 
upon others, and this is proved clearly enough, in practice, by 
the fact that all genuine missionaries are narrow-minded. Here 
on board I have conversed with several of them who have lived 


CHAP. 60 » TO AMERICA 273 


for years in China: they have actually managed to notice noth- 
ing of the advantages of Confucianism! Such blindness is 
truly a dispensation of Providence; it can only be explained by 
supernatural means. The Christian, and especially the Prot- 
estant missionaries are, with negligible exceptions, lacking 
in understanding, mean and crude of soul. To what a lament- 
ably small extent applies to them what is true of the apostles of 
Bahai, to whom Baha’u’llah, their messiah, gave the noble 
instruction: ‘O children of Baha! Have intercourse with all 
the peoples of the world, with the disciples of all religions in 
the spirit of complete joyfulness. Remind them of what is 
good for them all, but beware of making the Word of God the 
stumbling-block of friction or the source of mutual hatred. If 
ye know what the other does not know, tell him with the 
tongue of friendliness and love. If he accepts it and takes it 
up, then the aim has been attained; if he rejects it, pray for 
him and leave him to himself; ye may never importune 
Jeb hse ee Mee 

The missionaries at the beginning of our era were probably 
not much better. And when I think of this and the higher 
developments which they have brought about nevertheless, 
then my attitude to those of to-day becomes more mild. Of 
course, it is a misfortune that they visit India and China, for 
the inhabitants of these countries are in part mentally, in part 
morally, and in part spiritually too high above those who come 
to instruct them for them to exercise any advantageous effect. 
But they might go to more primitive peoples: they will be as 
useful to them as their predecessors were to our barbaric 
ancestors. In fact, they will prove themselves to be more use- 
ful to them than the revelation of more profound wisdom 
could be, because an unique formative power is undoubtedly 
inherent in Christianity; it is the only spiritual religion which 
possesses such power. And it possesses it, apparently, quite 
independently of the quality of those who proclaim it, and 
independently of the mental value of its dogma; for this value 
is, compared with that of Brahmanism and that of both forms 
of Buddhism, very small. In fact, it has constantly decreased 
in the course of centuries, for if the earliest fathers of the 


274 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


Church possessed spiritual insight, this is true to a small extent 
even of Luther and Calvin, and not at all of those artisans and 
workmen who appeared in America as the founders of religion. 
But almost in the same proportion as the mental value of Chris- 
tianity waned, its practical value, its efficacy, has increased. 
It cannot be denied that Protestantism forms men of greater 
idealism than Catholicism, and that the dogmatism of the 
American sects, however preposterous it is, has developed the 
spirit of Christianity in its disciples into a power such as it 
has never been hitherto. How is this to be understood? In 
the sense described above, that the spirit of Christianity is a 
spirit of practical work, for which reason it does not matter 
too much to what dogmatic concept it appears to be related at 
a given time. 

From this angle alone is it possible to do justice to Chris- 
tianity. It is not true that the teachings of Jesus Christ repre- 
sent a maximum in philosophical profundity; even the Gospel 
of St. John seems inadequate compared with that of the Bha- 
gavad-Gita. In the teachings of Sri Krishna and the Mahayana 
religion the fundamental ideas of the Saviour of the West are 
revealed in a profounder setting; they seem, moreover, to be 
related to a general whole of which Christ Himself remained 
unaware, and which nevertheless really gives them their pecul- 
iar meaning. From the point of view of metaphysical recog- 
nition, traditional or literal Christianity appears as something 
altogether temporary. But it is not a religion of recognition 
at all, but a religion of practical action, and as such it surpasses 
all others. As I have written already: among Christian peoples 
alone the ideas of love, compassion, humanity have become 
objective forces, and this means that even the most imper- 
fectly recognised metaphysical reality has been realised in 
appearance better through Christianity than through any 
other faith. Its founders were perhaps men with superficial 
powers of recognition, they were certainly more profound as 
men of action than Krishna and Acvagosha; yet, in so far as 
both meant to fashion appearance, the Christians were the more 
profound in the absolute sense, for in the sphere of actual life 
the best version of an idea is the one which stands the prag- 


CHAP. 60 TO AMERICA 275 


matic test best—no matter to what an extent it satisfies the 
mind. This is the meaning of that superiority of Christianity 
which history has proved, however much the one-sided intelli- 
gentsia may doubt it. 

And this at the same time justifies Christian missions. The 
narrow-minded men who journey forth to impose their irrel- 
evant opinions upon other people yet proclaim a real gospel 
through their being: the gospel of work and creative action. 
They give an example of a high spirit of sacrifice, untiring 
initiative, unshakable consistency, of the firm determination 
to help to victory what is good. For this is the essential qual- 
ity of Western culture, that it will not allow anything to be re- 
garded as unchangeable. We think it possible to transform 
the world from its very foundations, to embody our highest 
ideals in reality. This spirit of joyful militancy, of courage 
and optimism is alien to the East; the East is too sceptical of 
human power, it knows too much... Or has it perhaps 
overlooked something important? Have I, in my observations 
hitherto, laid the emphasis upon the wrong place? . . . The 
first American seagulls fly towards us. The psychic watershed 
has been passed, I am drawn irresistibly back into the Western 
feeling and mode and form of life. And now I recognise that 
the practical superiority of Christianity is the expression of an 
absolute metaphysical advantage: it embodies, as no other 
religion does, the spirit of freedom. Man, conditioned by na- 
ture, can show himself free only in two ways: by saying yes in- 
wardly to all events, and by taking the initiative in directing 
them. Accordingly, two commandments sum up Christian 
ethics: that every one should take his cross upon himself, and 
that every one should fearlessly fight for the victory of good in 
a spirit of ready sacrifice. These two commandments really 
induce a life of freedom in every one. If the Indians, the pro- 
foundest of all thinkers, fail in practical life, this is due to the 
fact that they do not know how to impress their free being 
upon appearance. Instead of taking up their cross, they think 
of its insubstantiality, which releases them just as little as the 
denial of an undesirable relationship removes the relation; 
instead of letting the recognition of their essential unity with 


276 THE NEW WORLD PART VII 


Brahma, who wishes to manifest himself more and more fully 
in this world, develop into action by displaying initiative every- 
where in accordance with the Divine will, they merely watch 
how God helps Himself. We know nothing like as much 
as they do; but the teaching of Christ induces us to live 
unconsciously according to their knowledge. Thus we are 
more destined to action than they are. We are the hands of 
God. These hands, as hands, are blind, and their blindness 
has caused much mischief. But if one day they are guided by 
the spirit of recognition, it is they who will, in so far as it is 
possible at all, succeed in founding the kingdom of heaven upon 
earth. 





7A 
Nites 
au 


uP 


LOT) Me 
wh 





61 
SAN FRANCISCO 


ACK once more in the West. What a good thing that Iam 
Bceing the Far West first! This world is Occidental to so 
extreme a degree that the inner transposition which is neces- 
sary to enter into it represses the pictures of the East of its own 
accord. Thus I find myself instantaneously lifted out of the 
unhappy transitional condition in which consciousness is over- 
populated by an unclean mixture of the old and the new. 

On the first day, in the belief that I still clung to the past, I 
took tea in the delightful Japanese tea-house which offers rest 
to the traveller at the Golden Gate. What was the first idea 
that entered my mind there? That the dwarfed trees longed 
to grow into giants! I never had such thoughts in Japan; they 
would have been opposed to its spirit. Thus, I had already 
lost my inner attachment to the East on the very first day. 
The air of California must possess an immense formative 
power. I observe what is going on in me: it is a real metamor- 
phosis. The consciousness of being recedes; that of ‘becom- 
ing’ increases; and those imperatives which reflect the objective 
tendencies of nature everywhere in the subjective sphere are 
already stepping into the foreground: one should grow, should 
increase, should advance; evidently this feeling of what one 
ought to do was at the basis of my impressions which spoke 
to me of the altogether improbable desire for growth of the 
Japanese dwarf trees. And this reminds me that I never felt I 
‘should’ anything in the East. Would Kant, would Fichte have 
been possible in the East? I do not think so. Where the 
consciousness of being predominates, there longing to create 
is unknown; there homunculus feelings cannot develop; there 
it seems unnecessary to command: ‘Become what thou art.’ 
The actual state of things is the same there, in principle, as 
here, but man assumes a different attitude to it. The evil-doer 
in the East knows no feeling of sinfulness, the man who strives 
still has patience; he who longs fervently for perfection, no 
matter how conscious he is of his present insufficiency, only 

279 


280 AMERICA PART VIII 


rarely feels the inner impulse to cut short evolution. They say 
the Orientals have time. The truth is that they lack the con- 
sciousness of time; for this reason the problems of being arise 
for them independently of its temporal actualisation. No 
Chela would stand waiting a generation at his Guru’s to dis- 
cover whether the hour of enlightenment would come, if time 
were a reality to him; where his consciousness is fixed upon 
appearance at all, as, for instance, in the condition of being in 
love, the Hindu is no more patient than we are. What is 
typical of the Indian is that he is conscious of his real being as 
such in the normal course of events, so that the sinner can 
regard himself essentially as a saint, the beginner as perfected, 
the fool as wise, and for this reason he sees no necessity to 
express being in becoming. For this reason neither the Indian 
nor the Chinese sages have given commandments in our sense. 
They have said: if you do that you will become perfect; if you 
are like that, then you have attained to your goal; if you com- 
mit this error, then your development will be arrested. They 
never said: you should do this. The East does not know the 
meaning of ‘should,’ because it ‘is’; we who are in a constant 
transition of growth, see ‘being’ before us in the form of what 
we ‘should.’ 

How strange that I ‘should’ do anything again! Now new 
values are becoming decisive: performance will decide the 
value of being, success that of volition. Now appearance 
acquires absolute significance, since the absolute is to find 
expression in it. The conditions of existence no longer repre- 
sent events of equal value; now the rich man is more than the 
poor, the strong more than the weak, the wise more than the 
fool. It is no longer a question of filling a given position but 
of wrestling for the best conceivable one. Which form of 
existence is to be preferred, the Eastern or the Western? May 
I still judge? Iam already no longer unbiased. Already I 
want to grow, to become, to create, perform, perfect again, 
already volition in itself fills my consciousness to such an extent 
that I find it difficult to become absorbed in another kind of 
existence. But this much seems unchallengeable: for this world 
the West has chosen the better part. In order to enforce what 


cHaP.62. YOSEMITE VALLEY, 281 


is right (which applies in idea eternally), power is needed, for 
in itself it is powerless; unless represented by material means 
even the truest ideas remain non-existent; however much the 
Eastern modality of life benefits the man of recognition, the 
Western modality is better, for purposes of translating recog- 
nition into action. From the point of view of this world, it is 
mere illusion, if a sinner regards himself as a saint—he must 
become saintly, change his appearance, if he wishes to realise 
his being here. ‘Becoming’ is only controlled by the man 
who takes things seriously, who identifies himself consciously 
with its phases; only he can quicken it who directs his will 
firmly towards the goal, and this, again, is given only to him 
who somehow or other sees it in the form of something which 
he ‘should’ do before him. The Indians, at home in the world 
of ideas, have merely allowed themselves to be driven by the 
stream of events. We know how to guide it. 


62 
IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 


I HAVE not really escaped from the East as yet: it forms the 
background of my Westerner’s life, thanks to which it throws 
it into a relief which would otherwise be lacking. Therefore I 
do not regard it as a matter of course, I find it noticeable that 
my self-consciousness gets compressed more and more within 
the limits of my person. The scenery which surrounds me is 
magnificent; in a similar landscape in India or in China I would 
have lost my ego long ago in the universe. I would feel myself 
weighted down by the rocks, which embrace the alluvial soil 
of the Yosemite within its steep walls; I would experience 
myself as the soul of the waterfalls, whose liquid masses reach 
the valley, after a descent of many hundred feet, as delicate 
spray; I would strive towards heaven in each fir-tree. Here I 
am not at one as a matter of course with what surrounds me. 
I differentiate between myself and the rocks, I see the water- 
falls outside myself, the spirit of the forest means a Thou to 
me. And if I become absorbed intentionally into that which 


282 AMERICA PART VIII 


essentially belongs to me, then it seems as if I conquered it. 
My world-feeling is expressed in the form of an impulse for 
empirical expansion. I can no longer enter into nature without 
taking my ego along with me; its structure seems to have be- 
come too dense to be dissolved in it as spirit. 

Accordingly, my consciousness of existence appears en- 
hanced. The force which, a little while ago, was able to fill 
universal space is now condensed into the confines of my indi- 
viduality. In the process its energy acquires a degree of 
strength which I never experienced in India. I am originally 
not at one with the world round about me—but what should 
prevent me from becoming so? Why should I not conquer the 
heavens and capture the earth? It seems to me as if I could 
do everything I wanted, and I feel impelled to prove it. This, 
then, is the meaning of Western conquest! We place the 
problem within the limits of time and space which the Indians 
attempt to solve independently of them, but it is the same 
problem none the less! Nor do I feel as though I had become 
more superficial than I was in the East, although the particular 
problems which arise for me now all cleave to the surface of 
things. How strange that the same inner meaning can find 
such profoundly different expressions: there as mystic recog- 
nition, here as impulse for conquest; there as all-understanding 
contentment, here as the blind desire for acquisition. But 
significance is no doubt the same everywhere, and it depends 
upon circumstances whether it appears as a beast of prey or as 
a lamb, as selfishness or greed, as understanding or action. 

In California I have become distinctly aware for the first 
time of the nature of the factors which make the phenomenon 
of the Westerner possible, for here they appear in their ex- 
tremest expression. ‘The air is incredibly vitalising; I have 
never had so much kinetic energy at my disposal. And if I 
survey my impression of my inner life together with my new 
view of the world of plants, that most truthful expression of 
the elementary conditions of life, then I perceive directly in 
what sense the vitalising quality of this world differs from that 
of tropical nature. External circumstances seem nowhere more 
favourable to the flora than in the hothouse atmosphere of 


cHaP.62. YOSEMITE VALLEY 283 


Ceylon; nevertheless, they do not imply an optimum for life 
from its own point of view. There it is never strong; the in- 
dividual is not distinctly marked; the elements luxuriate reck- 
lessly beyond the plan of the whole, the unifying link slackens, 
intensity suffers. In the case of plants and human beings the 
same phenomenon appears: lack of concentration together with 
an abnormal capacity for expansion. The line of demarcation 
between the individual and the species becomes blurred, the 
individual is lost in the mass. Generations of men luxuriate 
like climbing plants, products of the imagination flourish like 
weeds; it is only exceptionally that creatures of clear contours, 
of inner firmness and strength appear. In California every- 
thing tends towards individual formation. No matter how 
favourable the external circumstances may be, the inner factor 
dominates. The incredibly fruitful soil produces no jungle 
but single giant-trees. 

The greater individualisation which distinguishes the West 
compared with the East implies accordingly less limitation than 
an increase of power in the possibilities of life; or, expressed 
more precisely, the loss in superfluous wealth comes to benefit 
the inner tension. And yet I feel it here more than ever, 
just here where nature appears most kind to the Western mind, 
how far the East is ahead of us. I find it excessively diffi- 
cult to lead a mental existence; I succeed only with an enor- 
mous effort in concentrating my mind upon the problems of 
eternity; the magnificence of nature round about me hardly 
finds an echo in my soul. This is due only in a small degree to 
the fact that I am in a wilderness, in a world in which nothing 
has ever been thought out; it is chiefly due to the intimate 
processes which take place within my organism and rush into 
my consciousness irresistibly. I feel myself growing once more 
as if I were beginning my physical organic life anew; I feel 
myself reverting to the condition when ali my vital forces were 
fully occupied with the formation of the body. The whole of 
the spirit seems confined to the body. Accordingly, all strife is 
limited materially; if I now strove to heaven I could only do so 
in the sense of the fir-tree. Our world is a nursery compared 
with that of the East. Curious that such things can become so 


284 AMERICA PART VIII 


plain to one from the contemplation of trees. They are old 
enough, these giants which reach out above the crust of the 
earth two or three times as far as they do in Europe, but they 
belong to a young race. They are a primordial expression of 
life like the gigantic animals before the Flood. I would hardly 
be particularly surprised here if a Megatherium crossed my 
path, nor would a shudder of reverence for grey antiquity 
overcome me, but rather a feeling of cheerful satisfaction at the 
idea of how young this world still is. 

We are more materially than spiritually minded: because we 
have not yet got beyond the period of physical growth; we are 
materialists as children are. For this very reason our energy 
is chiefly expressed in a blind desire for activity. If I lived 
longer in this country I too would develop enterprise; my spirit 
would become more and more embodied in matter, and the 
idealism of the philosopher would be changed to that of the 
conquistador. I cannot assert that this world is personally con- 
genial tome. And yet I am quite clear about one thing: if it is 
the aspiration of the spirit to penetrate the world of appearance, 
if it is the mission of man to bring about this spiritualisation, 
then our materialism has a greater value in the future than the 
spirituality of Hindustan. This spirituality is powerless in the 
fact of Nature. It does not control her; for this reason 
it cannot spiritualise her. We may succeed in this. Only our 
path leads first into the very heart of matter. We must enter 
into and pass through all that over which the East has risen 
with a single leap. We must be materialists for the time being. 


a 


in these forests no higher kind of humanity :s conceivable 
than that of Cooper’s heroes. The roughriders, Red Indians 
and cowboys stand out magnificently against the background 
of this wild scenery, in which everything is so big and broad, 
and at the same time so simple; types of a more mental strain 
would appear as cripples. Here one must be bold and quick, 
determined and unscrupulous; the virtues of the prospector are 
the cardinal virtues. How very much alive the conquistador is 
still in the modern American! He practises robbery in drain- 


cHAP.62 - YOSEMITE VALLEY 285 


ing the resources of the forests and the fields, robbery in the 
same sense upon men. He is hardly less nomadic and less 
untamed than the trapper was in the olden days. 

I return in imagination to those boyhood days in which 
nothing delighted me more than to roam about in the woods, 
when the passion for hunting was my greatest joy, and when 
the adventurer who travelled in distant parts of the world 
embodied my highest ideal. Every real boy has passed through 
this phase; it signifies the normal exponent of consciousness 
during the period of strongest growth. What else is one to 
aspire to when one’s arms grow longer every day, except to 
stretch them out further daily? And if one did not strive for 
this, how should the arms gain sufficient strength? It is not 
well to confess to high ideals at too early a date. Yes, the man 
of the Far West seems young, indeed almost primordial. It is 
in accordance with this recognition that the real weaknesses of 
the Americans should be judged. Of course they are bar- 
barians, and in spite of their enviably advanced institutions 
they are highly dangerous for the continuance of Western 
culture: but certain concepts are simply alien to the schoolboy, 
he can see nothing evil in breaking a precious thing to pieces. 
Of course, sometimes the effect is very comic when so imma- 
ture a nation assumes the habits of a grown-up one: but I 
have never yet seen a boy who did not deem himself more 
wise than his parents. The foreign politics of the United 
States are schoolboy politics, their poetry is the romanticism 
of an upper form. And that is what it ought to be at present; 
the individual who was not a proper boy never matures into a 
man. And then children only fail there where they have to 
deal with grown-ups, these unintelligible and ununderstand- 
ing creatures; wherever they treat with one another, according 
to their own natural assumptions, they generally manage 
everything very well; their greater lack of bias makes them 
appear sometimes even as more wise in the absolute sense. 
Thus, America has solved better than we have a good many 
problems of home politics, and the public conscience there is 
less corruptible. In America the masses judge just as boys 
judge in moral questions: primitively, linking everything to- 


286 AMERICA PART VIII 


gether, lock, stock and barrel, with only a few simple assump- 
tions; to this extent their judgments are often unwise and gen- 
erally cruel, but they are hardly ever altogether wrong. 

The European often seems old to himself when he compares 
himself with the American. He feels how much there is behind 
him, to what extent his possible future has been restricted in 
advance by his history. Many obvious improvements in our 
condition, easily capable of execution in theory, will not be 
realised any more unless it be by destructive violence. If this 
consciousness oppresses the European, then he should think of 
the East and the manner in which our world appears to him. 
The Oriental sees no difference between the European and 
the American, but that the latter seems more typical to him; 
we too appear to him as great clumsy children, who still have 
to learn a very great deal, and who have very, very much time 
in front of them. And he is right. We modern Westerners 
are essentially young. Even if our tradition dates back nearly 
as far as that of India, to-day we represent a world which 
was only created yesterday. The world-conception of prog- 
ress, of democracy is something altogether new, it is hardly 
nearer to the philosophy to which it succeeded than that of 
China; and this outlook has formed us. The last hundred 
years have rejuvenated the white section of humanity. By 
transferring the stress in social importance from the higher to 
the lower strata, who hardly participate at all in our millennial 
heritage of cultural values, they effected much the same as the 
invasion of the barbarians did at the beginning of our era. In 
transplanting the ideal from the domain of ‘being’ into that of 
‘becoming’ they have communicated even to the oldest the 
modality of life of youth, in so far as the modern spirit has 
taken hold of them. The whole West is to-day passing through 
its wild-oats period. And is this not to be rejoiced at? One 
outgrows the failings of youth; the decadence and neuras- 
thenia of our day are, on the whole, not manifestations of age, 
but crises of growth, like anemia and ‘Weltschmerz’; that 
which is regretted as increasing coarseness really means that 
new primordial forces are being manifested. It is no doubt 
painful to think that the historical function of the traditional 


cHaP.63 THE MARIPOSA GROVE 287 


cultured classes of old Europe is at an end; but at some time 
or other every one must make room for the younger genera- 
tion. And this abdication does not imply death; in noble 
leisure, unconcerned with worldly ideals, the Western man of 
culture may yet continue to flourish for a long time and thus 
experience a sublimation which would never have fallen to his 
lot in active life. It is even possible that it is only then that he 
will achieve his greatest significance from the point of view of 
the future: we should remember, when despondency overtakes 
us, that it is the Jews and the Greeks, not the Goths and the 
Vandals, to whom the Germanic world owes the impulses which 
have given it direction ever since. 


63 
THE MARIPOSA GROVE 


ERE stand the mightiest trees in the world. About six hun- 
Hare specimens of Sequoia gigantea, two to three hundred 
feet high, fifteen to thirty feet thick, form a holy grove, com- 
manding reverence to a greater degree than romantic fancy 
could have conceived. It is dusky in there and cool, in spite 
of the August sun, which stands at its zenith. Its rays hardly 
find their way through the bushy crowns; the red of the trunks 
glows through the twilight as if the evening light were eternal. 
The giants stand there, upright and fresh, just as if thousands 
of years had not passed since the day of their creation. They 
are not lonely, for young people throng below them; they are 
not dead to the present, for year upon year their seed falls 
down to the distant earth; they are not old, for they are not 
threatened by natural death. 

I am overwhelmed by a wave of the profoundest feeling of 
happiness. The earth is not as yet feeble from age! It is still 
capable of preserving and creating mighty things! For the 
first time I look up to grandeur without melancholy. Never 
before have I contemplated in paleontological collections the 
remains of prehistoric magnificence without bitterness, nor 
have I ever thought without pain of the giants which our 


288 AMERICA PART VIII 


era produces every now and again from atavism or acci- 
dent: for to me it seemed only too certain that the creative 
power of our planet is dying out, that soon only dwarfs and 
cripples will be able to continue upon it. Now I see that the 
youngest of the continents still possesses the primordial power 
of primitive days. I gratefully greet it therefore as the refuge 
of our future. 

Humanity has never been so dependent upon physical con- 
ditions as are the white men of to-day; that is because they 
have set themselves a problem as no one else before them: they 
want to continue to change themselves ad indefinitum. Instead 
of setting themselves limits in given circumstances, they strive 
to get beyond them all so that no successful effort means an 
ultimate end to them. But only the youthful body is capable of 
changing and adapting itself, and that only to a certain point; 
for this reason all grown-ups become crystallised sooner or 
later, all civilised nations have ceased their development at 
some point, leaving further innovations to younger blood. For 
us no such boundary is visible in idea; the peculiarly fluid char- 
acter of our civilisation makes every fixed aim and all stagna- 
tion seem inconceivable, it demands a new attitude every 
moment, and exacts that every one who wishes to join in must 
remain adaptable. This, however, means that he must remain 
completely young for the whole of his life. Thus, our problem 
is primarily a physical one. Many suspect this: the physical 
is idealised to-day as it has never been before. Gospels are 
preached in which health occupies the central position, just as 
love does in the Christian gospels. But what these apostles 
generally forget is that man as a physical being is profoundly 
interwoven in his connection with nature, and can do little 
without it. Even rejuvenation succeeds rarely except through 
transplantation into younger soil: eternal youth is only con- 
ceivable in a world which remains eternally young itself. In 
order to find bodies such as we need to-day, of boundless 
power of tension, of unfailing plasticity, an endlessly vitalis- 
ing outer world would be needed, young as creation was upon 
the fifth day. This seems to exist here; American nature 
possesses the creative power of the beginning of time in an 


cHaP.63 THE MARIPOSA GROVE 289 


unweakened state. Just as it has succeeded in fusing diverse 
races and making Americans of types chosen at random in 
‘the shortest period—not merely a variety of human beings, 
but a real type—so it may be expected of American nature 
that it can create the body which is a match for the constantly 
increasing mental tension, and which would be capable of 
perpetual change. 

In America, if anywhere, we will complete our evolution. 
Europe will soon have spoken its last word of historical impor- 
tance. Tradition in itself is a fetter, which becomes more bind- 
ing from generation to generation, and ultimately suffocating, 
and the history of Europe is already so long that a radical 
liberation and innovation will hardly be successful upon its 
soil, not even if its inhabitants become ever so rejuvenated and 
attempt to evade the catastrophe, even through the most vio- 
lent revolutions. This time too the old truth will be proved, 
that new cultures only flourish upon new soil; in this latest 
historical crisis too the problem of new forms will be solved, 
not by the most mature but by those who are the crudest. 
And that it must be so is quite obvious in this case: when we 
Westerners undertook, unlike all previous cultures who con- 
ducted life subject to the realm of ideas, to impress this realm 
upon the domain of the earth, we were really beginning a new 
epoch of creation; we begin as beings of spirit and soul pre- 
cisely where physical nature started in the Triadic epoch. For 
this reason, the man of the New World fits into the Sequoia 
grove, this oasis of prehistoric days, better than into the ruins 
of Rome. 

I look along the gigantic trees: how symbolic their mani- 
festation is! Personalities like theirs need room; they cannot 
live as closely together as lesser beings, they are necessarily 
exclusive and haughty. The underwood of the Mariposa 
Grove, crippled and hopeless, would undoubtedly, if it could 
think, raise the social question. In the tropics this would 
never occur to it. There it is not individualised sufficiently 
to strive beyond the original cohesion of nature, and it is there- 
fore hardly conscious of possible oppression. Why has the 
ideal of equality inflamed the West, whereas it has never yet 


290 AMERICA PART VIII 


found honest supporters among the most oppressed Orientals? 
Because evolution leads us towards ever-increasing inequality; 
in the East, on the other hand, the greatest equality of oppor- 
tunity exists which seems conceivable upon earth: the condi- 
tion in which every one, no. matter who he is, must remain in 
the station into which he was born, where no one has special 
opportunities. In the modern West every one may desire the 
highest position he can conceive; this, of course, is attained only 
by very few, and the rest thereupon demur. Our method of 
putting the problems of life is not false, but it precludes an 
ultimate solution. If one does not wish to recognise a condition 
of static equilibrium in unalterably disparate conditions of life, 
then one must continue to advance for ever, for equality in the 
sense of a static condition of equilibrium, of unalterably equal 
conditions of life cannot exist; it contradicts the nature of 
things. The modern Occidental attitude to the problem of life 
—equal opportunity for every one—brings eternal struggle 
with it. 


64 
THE GRAND CANON OF COLORADO 


N front of the immense picture of the Grand Cafion I must 
Dinink of Kant’s definition of the sublime: that object is 
sublime whose contemplation moves the mind to interpret the 
unattainableness of nature as the representation of ideas. Here, 
the ideas which control inorganic events appear expressed 
with a distinctness and power and ‘largesse’? as nowhere else. 
Here, one single stream in restless work has furrowed out a 
wide, high plateau so deeply and thoroughly that man, looking 
down from the cornice of the Cafion, that is to say from the 
original bed of the river, upon the present one, perceives a 
similar picture to that of the Himalayas; when looking 
heavenwards from their forerunners what he sees there is 
an Alpine landscape in the nether world. This work of 
a peacefully gliding stream produces a grander effect than any- 
thing which the powers of Plato have ever achieved, because it 


cHap.64 . THE GRAND CANON 291 


was done without any extraordinary means; here one recog- 
nises, in fearful reverence, how omnipotent the forces of every 
day are. In the Grand Cafion of the Colorado the lines along 
which events proceed appear with incomparable clarity, for the 
decisive series of causes is hardly interfered with by others. 
Here no catastrophe has prepared the way, here no life has 
rounded off the edges or covered them with a fresh coat of 
paint. Everything has been undertaken and executed on the 
grandest scale. The Colorado has cut through all geological 
formations, from the glacial to the archaic. Acting only by 
virtue of its momentum and gravity, it has proceeded with but 
a single aim towards its goal, without any other tools than those 
which it possessed by nature, without petty considerations or 
violence. Where its course lay open before it, it spread out, 
thus changing whole provinces of flat country into mountain 
land; where only one course was in question, there it has col- 
lected its power and translated expansion into tension; every- 
where, however, as in God’s first creation, the result was good. 
Here the idea of hydraulic power, as Plato would say, has 
found its perfect expression. This power is lifeless: this could 
hardly be expressed symbolically more impressively than is the 
case here, in this greatest of all geological revelations, in which 
the stream has eaten its way through the life of all time. The 
inorganic forces tend downward, they run down like clock- 
work, incapable of winding themselves up again by themselves: 
no grander image of this state of things could be conceived 
than the Cafion provides, where the mountains belong to Hades 
and have not been piled up but cut out. There is no living 
spirit behind this achievement, and no purpose appears. It was 
begun and perfected without plan, and yet it is a monument of 
the very highest wisdom. The stream has overcome every 
obstacle as cleverly as any technician, it has understood the 
peculiarity of the materials more profoundly than any architect, 
and it has established the necessary relation between the details 
and the whole no worse than the greatest of landscape painters. 
The reason is, that the laws of calculating intellect are no other 
than the laws of the order of the world itself; nature always 
acts in accordance with reason; it does not require reasonable 


292 AMERICA PART VIII 


guidance. Thus, perfection is its destiny everywhere where it 
is allowed to complete what it has begun. 

The Grand Cafion of the Colorado is not only beautiful in 
this sense: the severe lines drawn by cosmic reason shimmer 
in a magnificence of colour which no Venetian could have 
made richer, and no Turner could have invented more imagi- 
natively. ‘This dead world seems to partake of eternal life. 
Every moment it expresses new moods, every hour its char- 
acter changes. What differentiates the beauty that we strive 
after from that which is so magnificently realised in dead 
nature? In the one case it is a mechanical result; the cosmos 
is the final condition of chaos, there is nothing beyond it. The 
ideal of beauty is a propelling force, it points us towards 
heaven. The last word of nature, its testament as it were, is 
the magic formula which opens higher worlds to the spirit. 

The delicate fusible colours play upon the deeply furrowed 
face of the Grand Cafion like a smile. Is not many a human 
visage more transfigured in the sleep of death than ever it was 
in life? I imagine that, just as to-day we men stand reverently 
before this miracle of death, so one day higher transfigured 
spirits will hover in devotion above the corpse of our earth. 
Our mightiest monuments will still stand out long after men 
have passed away. Occasionally the rays of a redder sun will 
lend them verisimilitude of life. Perhaps the actions of the 
spirit will be most grand in effect when eternal death shall 
have taken the place of the restlessness of life. 


+ 


I caze down meditatively into the nether world. Kant 
speaks of the unattainableness of nature, which is sublime in 
effect. . . . But is nature unattainable? Has man not ex- 
celled it already? Does he not achieve in a single year what 
the coloured stream has achieved in a million? To-morrow he 
will certainly succeed in principle. Material obstacles are 
no longer insurmountable. Even the wish of Archimedes, 
his dog uot mtov ota, will one day be fulfilled. At the end of 
time this planet, in order to escape the disgrace of disruption, 
will perhaps burst freely at a time chosen by itself. 


cuar.64. THE GRAND CANON 293 


However, the man of to-day does not rule as God, but as the 
_ spirit of the earth. Materially he dominates nature, he is not 
superior to it; instead of guiding it in accordance with his own 
ideals, he generally only does what the elements themselves 
demand from him. He resembles those river-gods in which 
the ancients believed, whose dominating will corresponded 
with the natural gradient. Man is even less wise than they 
were in so far as he takes the circumstances less into account, 
so that his works are less beautiful and less permanent; if he 
had excavated the Grand Cajfion, it would not be a miracle of 
beauty, it would have resembled a factory in ruin, and the 
ruin would not stand there for long. Modern man allows his 
aspirations to be dictated by blind nature, whose own will he 
only understands in part. Disposing over unlimited forces, he 
strives towards infinity, forgetful of the fact that his life is 
strictly confined. He suits his ideal to his ability instead of 
vice versa; he wants infinite wealth, infinite power, and as he 
does not know how to utilise them for himself, he pledges 
himself to them. Money becomes an end in itself to the busi- 
ness man, and he sacrifices himself to it; the same is true of 
power in the case of nations; the interests of capital perpetrate 
misdeeds unconsciously which no criminal would perform 
deliberately. The struggle for power of states, expressed in 
armaments, leads to wars of destruction, although all indi- 
viduals only want peace. What centuries have erected organi- 
cally is destroyed in the course of seconds; what conscious will 
has created serves the spirit, not of life but of dead matter. 
Our age is one of destruction as no other before has been, be- 
cause man employs forces which are too big for him. 

The Mahatmas, the peaceful supermen of the Himavat, have 
always controlled these forces; but they hand on their secrets 
only to the Chela who knows how to utilise them beneficently. 
But now they have been betrayed to the blind masses... . 
Still, this is not to be regretted as things are to-day. In an age 
where there are no differences of class, where the cry is: equal 
opportunities for every one! it is no longer possible for men 
to participate only in that for which they are inwardly mature; 
they must rather become mature by experience. The hardness 


294 AMERICA PART VIII 


of his training ultimately makes wise even the fool. And it 
undoubtedly implies, where the problem is to instruct, not 
single individuals but every one, the shortest way to this goal. 
Experimental science has done more for the emancipation of 
the masses than the wisdom of the adepts; that liberty which 
allows every one to perpetrate his follies has furthered them 
more rapidly than Brahmanic tutelage. Thus, it is precisely 
the abuse of the forces of nature which will lead most rapidly 
to their wise exploitation. When the means of destruction have 
grown all too big, no people will declare war light-heartedly; 
the consequences of unlimited expansion will prove clearly 
that man was born to self-limitation. The nature of things 
leads everywhere to precisely that which the recognition of the 
sages has anticipated. 

Therefore, we must not despair; our future is bright, no 
matter what terrible trials will be visited upon us in the mean- 
time. Once man has learned to govern the forces outside him- 
self, as the wise man controls his passions, then the spirit of 
the earth will be changed into a demigod. Then the blind 
forces will be a grateful means of realising the ideal in appear- 
ance. 


65 
THROUGH CALIFORNIA 


HILE the train is bearing me through the fruit-fields of 

W California, I am reminded of Mong-Tse’s opinion: it is 
better to wait for fair weather than to acquire good tools to 
plough with. If the inhabitants had thought so, California, 
to-day the garden of the earth, would have remained a desert; 
nature intended it to be one. The rain is so scarce that only 
desert plants, Yuccas and dwarf-pines, flourish on their own; 
the soil is dried up by the sun; the waters, which rush down in 
the spring and the autumn from the Sierra Nevada, have long 
ago dug out deep beds for themselves and no longer moisten 
the wide plains. But man has pointed new ways to them; where 
they are insufficient he pumps up the necessary moisture from 


CHAP.65_— - CALIFORNIA 295 


artificial wells; thus, California is to-day perhaps the most 
fruitful district in the world.—That is our Western feeling for 
nature, as opposed to that of the Far East. We do not submit 
to the existing conditions, we change them. But in order to 
attain this we must have understood Nature profoundly; she 
may be subjugated and governed only according to her own 
laws. Thus, we too are not strangers to her heart. Only our 
attitude to her is different. The Easterner possesses the most 
intimate understanding of her. The Chinaman looks up to her 
like a loving son, who, full of piety and self-sacrifice, gladly 
bears even paternal cruelty and never permits himself any 
criticism; the Japanese treats her as one woman friend treats 
another; he countenances her, loves her as she is, but he helps 
her to show herself to best advantage as far as possible. Our 
understanding is comparable with that of the—schoolmaster. 
We become absorbed in her peculiarity, but only for the pur- 
pose of changing her in accordance with our own ideals. She 
is to be different, to be better than she was. Like all school- 
masters, we suffer from a lack of understanding for the indi- 
vidual element. We do succeed in breeding general types— 
that is to say, arable land, fields, meadows, forests as such, 
officials for special functions—and we even can bring an aver- 
age nature to its highest perfection (a fertile meadow is more 
beautiful than a barren one), but in accordance with the usual 
schoolmaster’s fate we do not succeed in treating an exceptional 
nature according to its own necessities. Wherever absolute 
appropriateness is attained, beauty is the inevitable result. 
American stretches of cultivated country are generally ugly, 
because no consideration is taken of the peculiarity of its 
nature. 

But that will come. The Americans are still children, great 
clumsy boys in the midst of their hobbledehoyhood. It cannot 
be expected of them that they should be as considerate as the 
men of the Far East. They will become so in the course of 
time. For it is a misunderstanding that our relation to nature 
must necessarily destroy beauty; it does so only because we have 
not yet traversed our road to the end. The Japanese art of 
agriculture delights the eye because in it the specifically Japa- 


296 AMERICA PART VIII 


nese relation between man and nature finds its perfect expres- 
sion—not because this relation is the most favourable in itself. 
Whether I act as a determined or determining factor is a 
matter of indifference in principle; all that matters is that 
I should discover harmonious proportion. And we will all 
succeed in doing this one day, just as we have often succeeded 
already in detail. It is wrong to compare the attitude of the 
European’s scientific understanding with the artistic understand- 
ing of the Asiatic: the scientific attitude is the more prelimi- 
nary. If the Japanese had not observed acutely as a research 
student, he would never have attained the technique which 
makes him incomparable as a gardener. The scientific trait in 
him is less noticeable because he has not gone so far as we have, 
and has applied himself to productive synthesis at an earlier 
stage. We penetrate farther into nature; we have hardly yet 
begun with creative synthesis. But once we are so far, and are 
sufficiently mature that joy in nature predominates over greed, 
then I do not doubt that we will be able to present the specific 
relation which we occupy to the non-human elements no less 
perfectly than the Japanese represent theirs. 


66 
IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK 


I LOOK out upon the wide prairie from a shimmering cinder- 

hill, which the geysers have piled up in the course of thou- 
sands of years. It is the hour in which the bisons start their 
nightly wanderings. They proceed singly, each one by him- 
self and at considerable distances from each other; but all steer 
the same course unerringly, like wandering birds. What is it 
which gives these animals complete knowledge of the country? 
I do not know; probably no one knows. For men too who 
possess the same faculty do not know either. 

A few decades ago a single herd of buffaloes numbered not 
infrequently several thousand head; to-day not one hundred 
live in the wide plain of Yellowstone Park, and in the whole of 
America there are fewer than used to make up one average- 


cHap.66 . YELLOWSTONE PARK 297 


sized herd. We have exterminated them. And as I watch the 
last of these giants, which fit so admirably into the prairie, I 
tremble with anger. How poor the world is becoming for our 
sake! We do, of course, fence in wide tracts of country in the 
interests of animals, and we appoint districts to the redskins; 
but this does not put a stop to their destruction. The buffaloes 
perish inside the fences, the Indians degenerate since they are 
no longer allowed to wage war; both are inevitably dying out. 
Soon all picturesque types will belong to the past; soon the 
whole surface of the earth will resemble the intensely culti- 
vated land of Central Germany—everything divided up 
equally, laid out according to a pattern, inhabited only by men 
and thoroughbred cattle. I know: without committing suicide 
we will not be able to prevent this effect which we exercise. 
But what blindness to regard such ‘progress’ as a happy issue! 
It is simply appalling that the earth is becoming more uniform 
from day to day. For this does not mean a change of the 
existing energy, but an absolute loss of energy, because there 
is no substitute in the place of what is lost. Life is not trans- 
mutable in the same sense as electricity. Every type means 
something final, every one of them incarnates a_ possibility 
which exists only once and will never exist again. No matter, 
therefore, how blessed the race of Europeans, of cows, of 
horses and of prize pigs may be in future—it would not 
fill the gap which the eradication of other manifestations has 
eaten into creation. The world is growing poorer every day. 
That this is the real meaning of progress, America illustrates 
with horrifying clarity, because here the white man seems typi- 
fied most strongly as the ‘man with a purpose.? Nowhere is 
nature as magnificent as it is here; everything here has been 
created on a large scale, everything great is capable of life, 
only greatness is appropriate to the circumstances; this funda- 
mental state of affairs would, so one could have supposed, em- 
brace all values created by the mind: instead of that, they have 
all been lost sight of with the single exception of quantity. 
Only size and numbers impress the American; he only strives 
after them. This impoverishment of his soul is the necessary 
and inevitable consequence of the exclusive struggle after suc- 


298 AMERICA PART VIII 


cess. And what he does is becoming more and more the aspira- 
tion of Europe. Even to-day a widespread new philosophy 
has proclaimed the ‘economic principle’ as the ideal of thought 
—and thus raised what is a matter of course to the highest 
goal. We are becoming ever narrower and poorer, and this 
narrowness exterminates all wealth. Every definite line of 
development is exclusive, but the one we pursue is probably 
the first which destroys the others involuntarily. It is burdened 
with the curse of possessing such great power over the blind 
forces of nature that it must destroy even where it would pre- 
serve. The modern white man takes more conscious delight in 
nature than any other man, he is more profoundly interested 
than any one else in the peculiarity of alien phenomena; never- 
theless, wherever he turns, that which he is not or does not 
need dies out irremediably. 

Aryan European humanity has not much less destruction 
and murder on its conscience than that of Turkey and Mon- 
golia, although the latter alone has perhaps practised destruc- 
tion as an end in itself. The Romans erected their world 
empire upon the ruins of the old and peculiar states of the 
Mediterranean. Thereupon, the Germanic people dismantled 
the whole structure. Their offspring destroyed the cultural 
creation of the Arabs, then that of the Incas and the Aztecs. 
And if intentions have improved since then, our means of de- 
struction have become so perfect, and our civilisation in itself 
has, moreover, become so deadly for all who are not born 
in and for it, that the opposite is true of the result. Hegel 
teaches that stepping over corpses is the way in which the 
‘objective spirit? had to walk in order to reach fulfilment; 
that the leading nation of the day alone is of consequence, 
as the bearer of the ‘idea,’ and therefore justified in sub- 
jugating or exterminating all the others: he would be right if 
historical significance really contained all values within it. 
However, quite apart from the fact that this significance cannot 
be ascertained at all without prejudice, a prejudice, moreover, 
subject to the very doubtful assumption that whatever happens 
was for the best and bound to happen anyhow, which assump- 
tion implies that material success expresses the judgment of 


cHaPp.66 YELLOWSTONE PARK 299 


God—it may be regarded as certain that historical leadership 
possesses no necessary relation whatever to spiritual and mental 
importance. India and China, both of enormous importance, 
have not played any part in the movement of world history as 
Hegel understands it. That Christ and Buddha became the 
bearers of historical power seems accidental in relation to them. 
The historical process in itself is of a piece with the bio- 
logical process; this is so notwithstanding the fact that among 
men not only physical but also psychic organisms (ideals, the 
contents of faith) supplement and fight each other, Since the 
ideal process, which in itself is independent of the biological 
process, nevertheless takes place by means of it, a relation 
between both can be established on an a posteriori basis wher- 
ever action takes place. But essentially such a relation does 
not exist; the biological element is only a means, and if its 
laws are raised to ideals it causes mischief. It leads to views 
which are unworthy of human beings, such as that there is 
no higher entity than the state, that power is an aim in itself, 
that any means is permissible in the intercourse between na- 
tions, that a certain race has the right to enslave all the others, 
and that the modern homo technicus fulfils the very will of 
God in ruining the whole of creation for purposes of his per- 
sonal enrichment. Power, in the sense of being able and will- 
ing to compel others by force, far from implying something 
good in itself (which all believers in progress must tacitly pre- 
suppose, for only thanks to material power does Hegel’s ‘idea,’ 
as well as ‘Christian’ civilisation, succeed), is rather, as Jakob 
Burckhardt has so far recognised most profoundly, essentially 
evil and it also makes men evil. No power on earth has ever 
been founded without crime, not one has been maintained 
without some form of violence; the law of its life is of a 
fiendish, not of a divine kind. For this reason it is not nor 
will it ever be possible to establish a natural and necessary 
connection between earthly power and what is good in the 
moral and spiritual sense. Our Western civilisation, as the 
most powerful in the worldly sense which has ever existed, 
is by nature not good but evil: for this reason it not only brings 
destruction to all those who do not know how to adapt them- 


300 AMERICA PART VIII 


selves to it—it also corrupts the bearers. This typical result 
is obviated where power serves to realise spiritual and moral 
ideals, and fortunately it serves to do so more and more. 
Wherever man gives himself up to his own spirit, he turns into 
a devil. 

Now it is certain that evil has its definite and necessary 
function in the economy of the world. Destruction alone pre- 
pares the way for a radical innovation. If there is to be serious 
progress, then the natural processes of growth and decay must 
occasionally be accelerated. Only revolution explodes old rigid 
forms, only the premature end of generations, such as war 
brings about, rends the thread of fettering tradition. World- 
embracing cultures would never have come to exist if one 
species of men had not subjugated others and thus raised 
certain forms out of the jungle of wild luxuriance to pre- 
dominance. Last and not least—death and killing are normal 
processes of nature. Beasts of prey must plunder, and they 
seem no less entitled to existence than those who only consume 
plants. The acceleration and increase of the turnover of life 
occasioned by wars, catastrophes and plagues, alter quali- 
tatively nothing in the nature of events, and, quantitatively, 
very little in so far as there is a law of compensation in most 
things; the succession of faunas and floras in the course of 
geological epochs proves already by itself that every definite 
manifestation must necessarily die out at some time or another, 
and whether this occurs slowly, through the power of changing 
circumstances, or suddenly, through the invasion of an Attila, 
is probably a matter of indifference. The eternal values are 
essentially mortal in the temporal sense. The Indian myth, 
according to which creation and destruction are correlative 
attributes of the deity, is apparently very near to the truth: at 
times evil is divinely ordained. Only man should not usurp 
the position of Shiva; what is befitting to Him man may not 
desire deliberately; the inevitability of death does not justify 
the murderer. Just as birth and natural death are beyond the 
sphere of personal volition, so does the general scheme accord- 
ing to which the whole of life evolves stand above individual 


cHaP.66 . YELLOWSTONE PARK 301 


judgment. In the domain of senseless creatures this scheme 
attains to perfect realisation wherever cosmic actions or human 
whims do not cross its path; the self-regulation of nature works 
with marvellous wisdom. The same thing would happen 
among men if each individual did what was appropriate to him. 
Then God would express Himself through the free volition 
of human beings, all that was requisite from God’s standpoint 
would be done, no necessary conflict, no fate would be omitted, 
but the individual would be without metaphysical guilt, and 
judged by general results everything would contribute to the 
best. But men only do rarely what they ought to do, all the 
more rarely the more consciously they act. And where they 
undertake to determine events, believing themselves to know 
the plan of the whole, they work mischief. All this leads to 
insensate wars, to all-exterminating evolutions; the self-regu- 
lation of nature is destroyed and folly gains the victory. In 
this way white men have made havoc upon earth in many, in all 
too many directions. 

And yet their activity in other directions is divinely willed. 
Obviously the general equilibrium of forces has been changed 
in the sense that we, in so far as we affirm ourselves at all, must 
predominate; obviously much which is valuable and which we 
destroy is anyhow no longer capable of life in our world; 
evidently the time has come in which something new is being 
born at the expense of the old forms of life, be they ever so 
beautiful; and no argument can resist fate. This, however, 
means that there really is something which one might call the 
‘right of the stronger.’ It is as little a question here of moral 
right as in any other equation of material forces: on the con- 
trary, violation practised upon living beings is always evil, 
every act of violence as such is a blow in the face of justice, 
and the most just execution or penalty offends the moral sense 
in some way or another. But forces are realities which express 
themselves according to their own laws; on their level of 
existence they alone are valid. And however often evil van- 
quishes good, and crudeness perfection, no matter how fre- 
quently moral consciousness is thereby wounded and thought 


302 AMERICA PART VIII 


fails in the attempt to understand the meaning of necessity— 
sometimes it is possible to realise the beneficial quality of what 
is evil in itself, not only in small matters, as in the case of the 
compulsion of law and penalty, but even on a great scale. 
This applies particularly to the ‘right of the stronger.’ His- 
tory teaches that the most violent tribes have often developed 
into cultured nations with the highest moral outlook. This 
is to be explained, unless I am mistaken, in the following 
manner: physical superiority is only durable upon a moral 
basis. Without courage, strength achieves nothing; without 
readiness for sacrifice, discipline, organisation, even courage is 
of no avail. No matter how one-sided the advantages at issue 
may be—they demark the natural basis which seems most 
capable of a continued development towards the highest. The 
Germanic people, who destroyed the old world, were rough 
and cruel, but they were also courageous, loyal and ready to 
sacrifice; this enabled them, given their talents, to become con- 
tinuously better in the course of centuries, whereas Greeks and 
Romans, who were refined but cowardly and false, perished 
through degeneration. Only the proud individual who respects 
himself respects others too; if the most justly minded people 
of Europe could have developed from the violent Anglo- 
Saxon, this is due to the fact that all virtue begins with the 
ego and enlarges its circle from there, that the primitive faith 
in personal prerogative is the seed of all sense of justice 
in general—whereas among the Russians, who have always 
been good-hearted and never recognised a right for them- 
selves of oppressing others, for whom the spiritual vision of 
original Christianity is born in their blood, arbitrariness reigns 
supreme even to-day. The nature of the strong alone assures 
to the spiritual powers means of embodiment pregnant with a 
promising future. To this extent, as long as earthly develop- 
ment continues, all the more so whenever it is started afresh, 
there will also be a right of the stronger. 

. . . This is how the intellect judges. But as an esthetic 
being, I regret with all my heart that the processes of the world 
take this and not another course. I would gladly sacrifice all 
technical achievements that I might behold for a single eve- 


CHAP. 66 : YELLOWS TONE PARK 303 


ning the prairie in all its old magnificence, just as it was 
before the paleface declared the war of extermination upon 
the redskin. 


+ 


in these wild and vitalising surroundings I become ever more 
conscious of the violent and aggressive quality of my own hu- 
manity. We Westerners are essentially fighters. Whereas the 
Chinaman believes in a predetermined harmony between man 
and the cosmos, which must be preserved at any price, whereas 
the Indian, no matter what he does, withholds himself and does 
not participate inwardly in the struggle for existence, we stand 
by conviction in the midst of it. We do not trouble ourselves 
about the whole, we are and want to be elements and wish to 
fight our way through as such. The worst and the best in us 
emanate from this fighting spirit. Our lust for conquest and 
piracy originate from it, but also the movement towards re- 
form, science, social conscience. Because we are essentially 
fighters, we accept no authority unquestioningly, we wish to 
investigate freely, every one wants to decide for himself. The 
warrior knows no compromise, his will is to conquer or to be 
vanquished, his motto is: you or I. 

As long as I was in the East, our fighting nature appeared 
to me in an unfavourable light. How could it be otherwise? 
The fighter is essentially destructive, essentially blind, preju- 
diced, unjust, without understanding. The sage—and the 
whole of life is directed by him in the East—never fights; he 
stands above parties, surveying the cohesion of all manifesta- 
tions, personally centred in it, and he would be untrue to 
himself if he identified himself with any appearance. But 
whence his superiority? I never put this question to myself 
in the East. If I answer it now, it becomes evident that I did 
injustice to the West. For the colourless sceptic, the indiffer- 
ent, cold, undecided individual is not the sage: on the con- 
trary, of all beings, the ready sceptic is furthest removed from 
the sage. If the sage does not fight, this is not due to the 
fact that he rejects all struggle to begin with as purposeless, but 
because he has finished his fights, because he has overcome all 


304 AMERICA PART VIII 


dissensions between himself and the world; the process of 
discussion which generally takes place outside and hardly ever 
leads to a final result, has been completed for him in the still- 
ness of his soul. And by means of this recognition I only per- 
ceive now the whole profundity of the Indian myth, according 
to which the Kshattrya, the knight, is preliminary to the 
Brahmin: there is no recognition without fight; only the man 
who has fought gallantly as a warrior is mature for the divine 
peace of wisdom. 

This is explained by the fact that the decision 6s a battle is 
not merely a mechanical result, but simultaneously brings 
about an organic change. If convictions in general are afirmed 
clearly only after discussion has taken place, if people, after 
arms have decided, readily accept changes in power which but 
lately they regarded as unacceptable, when the man who was 
always strong grows into a hero only in adversity, this is due 
to the fact that souls become changed in battle. And they can 
only become changed in this way. Mere theoretical insight 
does not influence our inner nature. No matter how clearly 
one may recognise the necessity of a new order, one may yet 
be incapable of carrying it out in practice; one may recognise 
all virtue and yet remain a blackguard. Christ and Buddha 
were probably in intellectual possession of their wisdom long 
before revelation was vouchsafed to them; nevertheless, their 
mission dates only from this hour.. And this hour was one 
of bitter strife. Tempted by the Evil One, both had to van- 
quish him first: then, not before, were they free. This means 
that only then their human souls had been changed so far that 
they could serve as a tool for supra~-human knowledge. 

It is given to one among millions to become a Buddha, very 
few can rise considerably above the point of their departure; 
for this reason, a static order of society which does tolerable 
justice to the classes of natural rank, presents the most satis- 
factory picture at any given time. The individual, guided by 
his type, finds his perfection easily, and on the whole harmony 
prevails. But such an order does not permit any progress: 
only the born sage becomes wise in it, every one remains at the 


CHAP, 6G); YELLOWSTONE PARK 305 


level which nature appointed for him, humanity does not move 
at all from where it stands. In a world of strife all possibili- 
ties are open to every one. When everybody stands for what 
he thinks right with complete sincerity, striving after that to 
which he believes himself to be called, he tests by direct experi- 
ence what is in him, and thus gives every opportunity of de- 
velopment to every seed. And when every one tests himself in 
the same way, an adjustment takes place on a large scale which 
necessarily leads forward. The nature of things implies that 
every mistake revenges itself at some time or another, that 
everything false ultimately proves itself to be so, that every- 
thing rotten decays one day, and, on the other hand, that every- 
thing of value justifies its worth and that every truth proves 
itself—provided that such nature is given the opportunity of 
expressing itself. This opportunity is there as soon as man has 
the courage of daring. Since the individual fighters are always 
blind, the process proves little enough in the individual case. 
Reactionaries and revolutionaries, socialists and individualists, 
blind believers and freethinkers—however many factors there 
may be whose opposition goes to make up the dialectics of mod- 
ern evolution—they are all right in some part, and they are 
all wrong on the whole. Each one of them is only an ele- 
ment in a gigantic process, whose plan no mortal may survey, 
and no one ever achieves that for which he has battled. But 
no fight was ever in vain. Every man of ideal tendencies plays 
his part, no matter how modestly, in the improvement of the 
world, every resistance against evil weakens its power, every 
sacrifice benefits the future. And the whole develops con- 
stantly in spite of all reaction in an upward direction, which 
is guided by the nature of things, in the sense that the improve- 
ments of conditions which are possible at a given time and in 
a given place actually occur. Neither the men of 1790 nor 
those of 1848 achieved what they strove after, and it was well 
that this was so, for they desired much that was foolish; but 
thanks to them we are considerably farther on than they were. 
The Socialistic doctrine, as such, is mistaken, only without it we 
would not yet be so close to the juster order of rights which 


306 AMERICA PART VIII 


seems possible now.’ Progress is only possible in a struggling 
world; in a static and peaceful one there is no evolution. 
Every individual should only be sincere and upright, should 
have the courage to err, to commit a folly, to be limited and 
even to perpetrate a crime; the nature of things, or, as it is 
expressed in the Indian manner, the law of Karma, will pro- 
vide for the rest. The way of the fighter seems very mechani- 
cal, and so it is; the individual figures here only as an element, 
without understanding his aim; and salvation comes from with- 
out. However, a higher path is not practicable for the masses. 
More developed individuals may wander upon the path of 
recognition or of love—for the others, only Karma-Yoga is in 
question. The Karma-Yoga which has been invented and is 
practised by us is the most profound of all. In it we are not 
concerned with tacit surrender to presupposed forms, to the 
expected reaction of dogmata, exercises, rites, but with self- 
sacrificing initiative. And no conceivable Yoga could lead the 
majority of men more quickly to their goal. No matter how 
boastful the assertion may be on the whole, that we have got so 
gloriously far—it must be admitted that, since our more accel- 
erated evolution has begun, an incredible amount has been 
achieved. One should remember the position of the lower 
English, or even Irish, classes a hundred years ago, the posi- 
tion of factory workers everywhere even a shorter while ago, 
and think at the same time of the reaction which their misery 
exercised upon their souls: no one can then deny that to-day 
we are living in a new and better world, a world not merely 
of greater prosperity but of nobler outlook. This, however, 
has been created by struggle alone, by self-assertive egoism; 
it would have remained uncreated if the Chinese love of order, 
or the primitive Christian non-resistance to evil, had guided 
men’s will-power. In a world of struggle egoism leads most 
rapidly to the goal. How is this possible when it ultimately 
implies a misunderstanding? For this very reason: the nature 
of things proves egoism to be a misconception, and transforms 
it; cut-throat competition necessarily leads, sooner or later, 
to collaboration. Just as the iron-factories of Belgium and 


1See my criticism of Socialism and also the outlines of the new order as 
I perceive it, in my book Politik, Wirtschaft, Weisheit, Darmstadt, 1922. 


cHaP.66 YELLOWSTONE PARK 307 


Germany, which fought each other at the beginning of this 
century, arrived at an agreement which allowed each party to 
the contract to produce a certain quantity and no more, so it 
will be eventually everywhere in our world, precisely because 
we are born to violence. 


a 


IN this way the significance and peculiarity of modern West- 
ern culture may be defined exhaustively by one concept: it is 
the culture of sincerity. We admit more than any one else 
what we want and what we are. Whatever we may countenance 
temporarily—really and ultimately we believe in ourselves 
alone, and we do not rest until our position in and to the world 
is in agreement with our individual convictions. Accordingly, 
loyalty to conviction and empirical truthfulness are among 
our highest ideals. We do not know, as the Indians do, how 
to unite externally metaphysical truth and telling lies, or, like 
the Chinese, how to maintain a prescribed outer order without 
breach of faith, without even questioning to what extent it 
corresponds to ourselves: according to our view, we regard it 
as better to perish as the result of personal mistakes than to 
serve a truth we have not understood, better to lie, in the 
metaphysical sense, by the courageous practice of what we 
believe than to pronounce an empirical untruth. Here too 
we are guided by the fundamental idea which lies at the bottom 
of all Western cultural manifestations, that it is the mission of 
man to embody significance in appearance. 

In China I contemplated the disadvantages of sincerity. It 
advances the individual less than blind surrender to something 
outside him, if this coincides with an objective optimum, and 
in so far as personal opinion is erroneous; in this sense our 
crudeness is largely due to our sincerity. But our barbarism, 
on the other hand, has more future than any culture based upon 
authority, because courage and truthfulness, and they alone, 
necessarily lead forward, because, above all, they alone acceler- 
ate the processes of evolution. According to the nature of 
things, even our mistakes must turn to blessings. 

I pass in review the history of our sciences and philosophies. 
How many bypaths have we not trodden, and how many 


308 AMERICA PART VIII 


detours have we not embarked upon! How many preliminary 
statements have we not honoured as the final word, with how 
many one-sided formulas have we not imagined that we have 
exhausted the significance of the world! But every mistake 
nevertheless resulted in some good. Whereas some recognise 
only Being, others only Becoming, every possibility was worked 
out so clearly in the fight between the various schools that their 
connection seems perfectly plain to-day. While revolutionaries 
condemn all traditional morals, and raise selfishness as their 
banner quite candidly, they force the others to discover the 
reason for their opposite convictions, with the result that truth 
is all the more firmly established, and many an error is eradi- 
cated. We owe it to the enmity against the Church, to free- 
thinking and anti-religiosity that to-day at last the significance 
of religious faith is beginning to be recognised, with the result 
that what used to be the dark content of blind belief is be- 
coming clear recognition. Every criticism brings a blessing in 
the long run, no matter how one-sided it may be, no matter 
how much beauty it may destroy at the moment. For here 
too it is a case of: die and be born again (Stirb und werde)! 
New life arises only from the decayed seed, only out of the 
decay of what has been accepted blindly does clear knowledge 
grow. If man is to become autonomous, completely responsible 
for everything which he wills, thinks and does, then he must 
also be completely conscious of his causes and reasons. He 
must explode all dogmas as such, he must renounce all preju- 
dice, all reinsurance in racial experience. The recent age was 
dedicated to this process. The mental cosmos has thus retro- 
gressed once more into chaos, which foments and boils, and 
what will ultimately come of it cannot be anticipated in detail. 
But the general goal is certain by now: our culture of sincerity 
must lead to the result that the harmony based upon heter- 
onomy is becoming transformed into one based upon autonomy, 
that all truth which was accepted previously on the strength 
of authority will become personal recognition, and that per- 
sonal self-consciousness will become altogether the bearer of 
the will of humanity. And this alone can lead thither. No 
matter what pleasant pictures of accomplished perfection the 


cHaP.66 YELLOWSTONE PARK 309 


Indian, Chinese and Catholic Christian systems may offer— 
they contain no possibility of evolution. Only along our path 
can a new order develop.* 

The youngest and most typical Westerner, the American, is 
the most sincere of all human beings; this redeems his lack 
of culture. His potentialities are unlimited. No matter how 
little preliminary states as such can stand comparison with 
perfection—in a world of growth they have a right to exist- 
ence. And ultimately these preliminary states are closer in 
idea to the supreme conceivable consummation than Indian 
perfection is. I recall to mind my observations concerning 
its peculiarity: the Indians, profoundly conscious of signifi- 
cance, never find it necessary to take into consideration, in ex- 
pressing it, the particular meaning of the means employed, 
they never demand the congruity of both levels of meaning. 
For this reason they regard facts and inventions, realities and 
myths, lies and truths, superstitions and precise knowledge as 
equal, if only significance as such appears to have been seized. 
But this can only be realised completely where it permeates 
appearance throughout, where no kind of opposition exists 
between the inside and the outside.” For this reason, inven- 
tions and facts, lies and truths are not of equal value; contra- 
dictions within the sphere of expression rob significance of its 
efficacy; hence the failure of the Indians in practical life and 
as men. The Westerner is a fanatic of exactitude; hence his 
unparalleled success in the world of appearance. Of signifi- 
cance he knows little as yet. If, however, he perceives it at 
all, then he will find perfect expression for it, he will establish 
the perfect harmony between essential being and phenomena. 


11 have developed these ideas in the Chapters ‘Antikes und Modernes 
Weisentum’ and ‘Was uns Not tut’ in Schoepferische Erkenntniss. See also 
my essay ‘Psychoanalyse und Selboervallkemmung’ in the sixth volume of 
my Weg zur Vollendung. 

2I have developed this particular trend of thought in the Chapter ‘Sinn 
und Ausdruck in Kunst und Leben’ of Schoepferische Erkenntniss. 


310 AMERICA PART VIII 


67 
SALT LAKE CITY 


s I was turning over the leaves and tracts in the office of 
A the Mormon Temple, waiting for the beginning of the 
organ recital which takes place at noon, the saleswoman turned 
to me and asked if the new gospel had already been preached 
to me? I replied that I was familiar with the writings of the 
Mormons.—Are you already convinced that they contain the 
word of God? And, without giving me time to answer, she 
continued: That is just the wonder of our religion, that it is 
possible to obtain certainty without digression concerning the 
divine origin of its revelation. God has proclaimed through 
Joseph Smith that he who petitions Him for knowledge in 
truthfulness will be answered directly, and He is as good as 
His word: that is how I was converted. I am a Munich girl; 
it was by accident that I listened to a Mormon missionary; he 
showed me how I could be certain of the divine origin of the 
Book of Mormons. So I asked God—and behold: He an- 
swered me at once with an audible Yes. Since then I am 
here and I am very happy.—I looked at her and was really 
touched. She belonged to the usual type of convert such as 
populate all revivalist churches; but I had never heard with 
my own ears such touchingly simple ideas expressed. In this 
respect the Mormon Church stands undoubtedly at the head 
of all spiritual institutions. How pathetic is the history of 
Mormon polygamy! It had been revealed to Joseph Smith 
that the family ties continue in Heaven; thus polygamy was 
recognised as existing in so far as the man who marries several 
women, one after the other, upon earth, will possess them 
all at once in heaven. Thus, the next revelation, that man 
should have several women on earth, was only a corollary to 
the preceding revelation. Nevertheless, this commandment was 
a terrible shock to the minds of the faithful; it was opposed to 
all the prejudices of their worthy Anglo-Saxon souls. How- 
ever, the fear of God gained the victory, and with a heavy 
heart they took several wives unto themselves. ‘The trials 


CHAP, 67 SALPULAK EC hTRY, 311 


soon began; a period of such bitter persecution followed that 
the Church was threatened with destruction. The Lord there- 
upon was merciful: He revealed to the president, Wilford 
Woodruff, that polygamy might now cease. ‘Thus, the latter- 
day saints,’ according to a canonical writing (Mormonism by 
B. H. Roberts, published by the Church, page 57), ‘as far as 
polygamy is concerned, are responsible neither for its introduc- 
tion nor for its abolition. The Lord commanded it at first in 
spite of all human prejudices; then taking mercy on the suffer- 
ing which obedience brought down upon His faithful, He 
permitted the return to monogamy. It is God’s business to 
answer for the commandments that emanate from Him.’—I 
am reminded of the judgment which Swami Vivekananda de- 
livered concerning all the religious founders of the West he 
knew of: in them, genuine revelation was mixed in a curious 
manner with quaint superstition; no doubt they were inspired by 
God, but they were psychically too uncultured to perceive what 
had been revealed to them in its purity, and to understand it 
correctly. And that isso. In Mormonism that which applies 
in principle to all religious manifestations of Western human- 
ity only appears in its extremest form. Undoubtedly Joseph 
Smith and Brigham Young were just as genuine prophets as 
Moses, Wesley, Luther and Calvin; only they were exceed- 
ingly ignorant and uneducated. But in this respect they are 
not essentially different—and one should be clear on this point 
—from our greatest men. What is one to say, for instance, 
of Luther, who rejected what was believed to be the nature of 
religion by all profoundly religious minds before him as a 
transient, secondary and even questionable manifestation, and 
regarded as its nature precisely what before him was consid- 
ered as its derivative effect; who has taught that religion is 
nothing else, and can mean nothing higher, than blind faith 
in God and the use of the Word and sacraments as means to 
salvation? * One can only be awkwardly silent at the lack of 
understanding of this great man. His personal religion was 
wonderfully profound, but his thoughts concerning religious 
matters all remained on the surface. And then Calvin: is his 


1See Adolf Harnack, ‘Reden und Aufsatze,’ II. pp. 300, 302. 


312 AMERICA PART VII" 


dogmatism not monstrous? Monstrous indeed is the idea of 
eternal damnation, imposed upon powerless souls from the 
beginning by an all-merciful God for His own glorification. 
Nevertheless, Calvin was otherwise a highly cultured man, 
and Luther a genius: for this reason the spirit of profundity 
radiates from their most superficial mental images, so that 
through all their errors one feels that they knew more than 
they could pronounce. Among the Anglo-Saxon reformers, es- 
pecially those from across the sea, one feels nothing similar. 
The Anglo-Saxon race, in many ways the most developed in 
the world, is religiously at a completely primitive stage. It is 
so unphilosophical, so unpsychological, so altogether undiffer- 
entiated and unreflective as far as the life of the soul is con- 
cerned, that otherwise distinguished Britons profess candidly 
religious forms which, according to our judgment, would hardly 
be suited to the simplest country yokel. No Anglo-Saxon 
founder of religion was ever capable of a philosophical judg- 
ment, and if he belonged, into the bargain, to the lower strata 
of the people, and if he was uncultured and unschooled alto- 
gether, like most of the American reformers, then systems like 
that of the Mormons came into existence. Once more: the man 
who is familiar with India, or knows by other means what re- 
ligious culture is, does not regard such excrescences as the 
Duchobortsy in Russia, the Pietists in North Germany and the 
Mormons in America as anything extraordinary; he regards 
them, rather, as tolerably typical forms of expression of reli- 
gious experience in the West. 

We Occidentals are not men of understanding, but men of 
action. [he same Mormons whose religious ideas seem so 
childish have achieved a civilisation hardly attained by any 
other people; in barely half a century they have changed a 
salt desert into a garden. They are, moreover, admirable citi- 
zens, law-abiding, honest and progressive. Such practical ad- 
vantages are not characteristic of the Indians, in spite of their 
greater insight. Apparently there is no necessary connection 
between the philosophical value of an idea and its importance 
in life, nor can a judgment be formed concerning the latter 


CHAP.67 SADT ODA BEC ity, 313 


from the former. The idea of predestination is a monstrosity: 
nevertheless, it has formed the strongest men in history; the 
whole efficacy of modern man is traceable to the doctrine of 
John Calvin. The Lutheran attitude of religion is strangely 
superficial: nevertheless, from it, or within it, the profoundest 
mental culture of Europe has originated, and its spirit lies at 
the bottom of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, just as it 
lies at the bottom of the greatest German speculation. The 
Catholic Church, with its opposition to all independence, with 
its primitive mythology and its enmity to progress, signifies, 
even to-day, the best psychological institution for education, 
perhaps the best school for self-recognition which we possess. 
And Brahmanism, with its marvellous profundity of recogni- 
tion, has shown itself incapable not only of influencing the 
practical life of the masses anything like as favourably as the 
cruder forms of religion of the West, but it has advanced 
recognition less on the whole than Lutherism has. It will not 
do, in judging a religious idea, to disregard the empirical 
circumstances within which it is to be effective. Their efficacy 
depends upon the degree in which it influences the will of men; 
and this depends upon the pre-established harmony between 
religious concepts and instincts, which, in their turn, depend 
upon the surroundings in which they grew up, and so on. In 
general, the following is the most that may safely be said: 
where spiritual culture is small and the intensity of volition 
great, primitive ideas prove themselves to be the best; where 
the opposite condition prevails, there all ideas are ineffective; 
only where both are more or less on the same high level, spir- 
itual value more or less determines their efficacy. One portion 
of European humanity has lately reached this final stage; but 
this portion is smaller than one thinks; even among us, primi- 
tive concepts are best suited to the majority. 


+ 
WHEN one regards American sects, not in themselves, but as 


the exponents or representatives of Western religion, they 
appear much more interesting, for here, as everywhere else, the 


314 AMERICA PART VIIT 


typical characteristics of the Westerner are more in evidence 
in America than in Europe, and they have attained to more 
advanced stages of development. 

What differentiates our sense of religion fundamentally 
from that of India? That in our case, as opposed to India, 
the principium individuationis is the ruling principle of every 
manifestation. Religion in the West is concerned with the rela- 
tion of the individual as such to God; there is no instance 
above the individual within the human sphere. Thus, individ- 
ual phenomena acquire value. No matter how this relation 
may be understood in the particular—in the sense of the infinite 
value of the human soul pure and simple (Christ), of per- 
sonality as the highest boon (Goethe), of the superman 
(Nietzsche), the ‘Godman? (Johannes Miiller, New Thought), 
which every individual can develop out of himself or awaken 
in him—it is the stressing of the value of the individual as such 
which gives its singular character to Occidental religion. It is 
to this that most, and at any rate the most important differences 
between Eastern and Western religious life are to be traced. 
Nowhere are there more sects than in India; nowhere are the 
marks of differentiation more distinctly developed. But as the 
emphasis is not laid upon the differences, the same consequences 
do not follow upon this state of things which would have re- 
sulted in similar circumstances in the West. Among us, differ- 
entiation has always occasioned enmity; in our case, if one sect 
looks down upon another, makes war upon it, persecutes it, 
seeks to exterminate or to convert it, if value is to be attached 
to individual forms, then the form recognised as the true one 
at any given time naturally robs all others of their worth, which 
results in the right, and even the duty, of doing away with 
them somehow or other. But when individual phenomena are 
not regarded as values, but as particularised expressions of 
higher qualities, then intolerance, exclusiveness, the passion 
for proselytising, and even the mere missionary zeal, lose their 
footing entirely. For this reason even the Mahayana religion, 
which imposes the duty of sending out missionaries, has never 
practised intolerance: it is absolutely opposed to the Indian 
spirit to regard a special manifestation as of value in itself. 


CHAP.67. SALT DLAKREVCLRY 315 


There is no doubt that the Indian attitude is the right one 
in principle: individuality has no value in itself; but it can be- 
come the bearer of values, and if this takes place it acquires 
a spiritual density which radically changes its nature. Hence 
the immense and unique efficacy which marks the Western 
spirit in all its manifestations. What forces has the mere fact 
of being different not released among us! One should think 
of the struggles between Christian and heathen, Catholic and 
Protestant, sticklers for tradition and sticklers for progress: 
however little justified they may seem inwardly, they have 
caused prodigious and, moreover, beneficent effects. Every 
fighter saw, in his particular profession, the only possible vessel 
for absolute truth, he filled it with the entire content of ideals 
which he possessed and thus became more clearly and inti- 
mately conscious of them than he could have done if he had 
contemplated them by themselves without taking sides. This 
explains why our limited recognition has signified more for 
the progress of humanity than the more profound and wider 
doctrine of the Indians: we have embodied what we knew in 
our personal life, and by this means we have communicated the 
whole vital power of our personal wishes and aspirations to 
our ideas. In this way the riddle is solved why the Duke of 
Alba’s and Cromwell’s intolerance have contributed more to 
the victory of the freedom of conscience than the omniscience 
of an Erasmus: tolerance develops into indifference in practice, 
and can therefore not change the world by itself, whereas every 
one-sided action, thanks to the counter-action which it occa- 
sions, tends towards the transformation of the old condition 
of equilibrium into a new one.” In this way the paradox is 
explained to which I have pointed several times in the course 
of these observations—the paradox that the value of an idea 
as such guarantees its practical value so little that more limited 
and even monstrous conceptions have often proved to be more 
beneficent than others more profound: where the accent of 
being is laid upon appearance, it becomes transfigured; it signi- 


1] have developed this idea in my lecture Spannung und Rhythmus which 
deals with the particular mission of the West in future history (see Der 
Leuchter, 1923). 


316 AMERICA PART VIII 


fies what has no relation to, in fact hardly any connection with, 
its own particular meaning; it becomes the expression of the 
absolute. Thus, the nations of the West, in spite of the blind- 
ness of their souls, their limitations, their one-sidedness and 
intolerance, and one can almost say because of them, have 
achieved more for humanity as a whole than any others have 
done hitherto; they alone have undertaken and understood 
how to realise the ideals which they recognised progressively. 

The medium of -this realisation was nothing else than the 
party spirit, its fundamental motive was the faith in the abso- 
lute value and substantiality of the individual; but the operative 
force was the ideal. ‘Thus, the normal path of progress leads 
of its own accord beyond limitation. Nobody has probably 
been religious in a more narrow sense than the American pil- 
grim fathers; for a long time the most cruel intolerance pre- 
dominated on the other side of the ocean. The persecutions 
in particular which the Mormons had to endure were terrible. 
But because the principium individuationis was exaggerated in 
America, it exploded there at the earliest stage. Sect upon 
sect arose, each one imagined itself at first to possess a mo- 
nopoly of truth, and secluded itself strictly from all the rest. 
As all Americans, however, have accepted the absolute freedom 
of the individual as the fundamental principle of political 
philosophy, the necessary consequence in the long run was that 
one individual had to countenance another; tolerance slowly 
but irresistibly took the place of original intolerance. Thus a 
process had begun, which undoubtedly implies a high-water 
mark in human evolution up to the present: a practice which 
in idea is based upon Indian generosity, which countenances 
all special manifestation as a matter of course, but which is 
de facto animated by the whole power which personal volition 
evokes. In other words: the latest development of Occidental 
humanity leads to the same condition by stressing the value of 
the individual, as the disregard of the individual does among 
the Indians. 

If the Western and Christian outlook upon life is ever ani- 
mated by the spirit of metaphysical knowledge, then it may 
one day bring forth the most perfect life which here below is 


CHAP.67° SALT LAKE CITY 317 


theoretically conceivable. If Christian love until to-day has 
occasioned as much mischief as good, this is due to the fact 
that it still coincides too much with the natural feeling which 
implies the will-to-take rather than the will-to-give, and is 
almost identical with a wider form of egoism. If the Christian 
attitude to death seems on the whole less noble than the Bud- 
dhistic attitude, it is due to the fact that the emphasis is laid, 
not upon the sacrifice, but upon retention, upon compensation 
of suffering and a rediscovery in a better world of everything 
that has been lost. However, none of these views necessarily 
belongs to our attitude to life. What characterises our attitude 
essentially, independently of all time-limited concepts, is the 
stressing of the value of the individual and the assent to per- 
sonal fate; these, however, animated by the spirit of true 
knowledge, could bring about a higher and fuller life than 
Indian detachment can. Even the Indians speak of the sacri- 
fice which every one should bring: but what value has the 
surrender of that which we do not care for? The man who 
does not take life seriously finds its renunciation easy. But 
this not-taking-seriously proves, except in rare cases, lack of 
sincerity. We happen to be individuals, earthly, suffering 
beings, and we are related to this world with the whole of our 
empirical consciousness. We lie, therefore, when we assert 
that it means nothing to us; or if we do not lie, we reveal in 
most cases, not that we are superior to the world, but blunt and 
lacking in feeling. In any case, we evince a physiological in- 
capacity for sacrifice. Only that kind of surrender which is 
not made with a view to greater gain, nor relates to that which 
has been recognised as worthless, can be regarded as sacrifice. 
It is only in the cheerful ability and wish to sacrifice that we 
have become ‘entworden,’ as Master Eckhart says, that we 
have put off our ego, and accordingly become practically one 
with God—and no attitude to life induces such real sacrifice 
more than that of Western Christianity. It makes possible 
in idea by far the freest attitude towards death. He who dies 
really gives away his life; for even if his soul continues to 
live—the man, in the shape in which he knows himself and is 
dear to others, is gone for ever. To die gladly in the full 


318 AMERICA PART VIII 


consciousness of this fact, or to surrender a beloved creature 
willingly, literally involves the overcoming of death, for he 
who can give in this way—pure giving without wishing to take 
again—is thus beyond all nature. It is just the same with 
Christian love. It is decidedly better than despising oneself 
and the world to an equal degree to love one’s neighbour as one 
loves oneself, be this only because every one does love himself. 
Only love, in order to imply an expression of metaphysical 
knowledge, must be pure giving, a process of sun-like radia- 
tion, a pouring out of warmth and light without reserve, in- 
tention or exclusiveness. Because love in the Christian world 
is not like that, but on the whole an expression of selfishness, 
it offers an uglier spectacle than the more indifferent love of 
the East. However, subject to progressive recognition, it can 
and must become so; the psychic body is there, only requires 
transfusion of spirit, and this is already beginning. Once this 
process has been perfected, then the divine light will possess 
a perfect medium in the Christian soul. Instead of shedding its 
radiance, as in India, only in the spiritual sphere, or in that of 
sensibility, as in Buddhistic Japan, or only, as in the West hith- 
erto, pointing the direction for action, it will animate man in 
his entirety. 


68 
EASTWARD 


I Now traverse the continent in the hurrying train; the new 
world flies past me with the speed of the wind. And once 
more I perceive that time is merely a hindrance to the under- 
standing of what is essential. The great outlines appear all 
the more clearly, the more the details are diffuse and indistinct. 

America, in spite of the preliminary character of most of its 
phenomena, is decidedly nearer than Europe to the ideal con- 
dition towards which our latest evolution tends. I am not, of 
course, thinking of the man who boasts of his culture by de- 
claring his ability to buy everything, who regards himself as 
the crown of creation—he is not important in any way, hardly 


CHAP. 68 ; EASTWARD 319 


more genuine in his garment of European culture than the 
Anglicised Hindu; but I am thinking of the hard-working 
man of indifferent position, whose success is none too great on 
a large scale, and for whom the democratic outlook has really 
been devised. He is far superior to his transatlantic fellow. 
In America most of that is lacking which embitters and re- 
duces the European who is born in an unfavourable position 
in life. Here the circumstances are such that every individual 
can hope to make his own way, and his courage and straight- 
forwardness are thus strengthened; here circumstances offer 
him, on the other hand, the hard school which every immature 
individual needs by nature in order to gain the moral right to 
self-determination. And if a man rises considerably from small 
beginnings, he can appear as mature for his higher position as 
the one who is born into it, because disregard and fear of such 
a position are often the main hindrances to a rise of the soul 
which naturally follows an external improvement; and because, 
Vice versa, genuine merit, joyfully recognised, influences self- 
consciousness in a similar manner to inherited nobility; for 
undoubtedly class barriers and class prejudice are a pure evil 
wherever they do not actually correspond to physiologically 
existing differences. Here, if anywhere, real culture will 
blossom one day from a democratic basis. 

Thus, in America the view has already gained a footing to a 
high degree which must apply wherever modern develop- 
ment approaches its perfection: that all work is equally hon- 
ourable. Of course, this is based at first upon force majeure, 
not upon higher insight, and for this reason it is not surprising 
that here, on the other hand, class prejudice prevails of a 
cruder kind than among us. But the combination of circum- 
stances by which every one, absolutely dependent upon him- 
self, must earn his bread, and can yet participate in the highest 
culture, and feel himself to be a kind of sovereign, necessarily 
involves the fact that, in the eyes of the American people, the 
execution of the lowest function does not preclude a man from 
being a gentleman, with the result that all work appears 
ennobled and the self-consciousness of those in the lowest 
position appears raised. “Thus, the path to an ideal condition 


320 AMERICA PART VIII 


has been embarked upon: if it is attained, then the truth that 
all externals are indifferent would have found its highest 
possible embodiment.* The Indians regard all externals as 
indifferent in the sense that all appearance seems equally 
worthless to them: it is undoubtedly more desirable to regard 
all appearance as equally valuable, and that is the direction in 
which American development is moving. Both attitudes sig- 
nify the same metaphysically, because both cancel the empirical 
order of rank, but the latter gives significance to appearance— 
‘the kingdom of heaven is realised upon earth’—whereas the 
former makes appearance completely hollow. The Oriental 
view of the indifference of all externals reduces those who are 
compelled to devote themselves to external activity, that is to 
say all the working classes, to the level of meaningless exist- 
ence; the American view makes it possible for the most 
wretched coolie to feel himself as a complete human being and 
to act as such. Here, in the American type of workman, a form 
of progress seems to be realised which is more than progress 
in the usual sense: here we are concerned with a state of ad- 
vancement, not merely in the sense of success, but, above all, 
in that of the possibility of higher perfection. If every external 
frame is considered as equally valuable, then the fatal character 
of mobility has been destroyed; then the passage through the 
various orders of life may bring the same inner culture with 
it which is otherwise obtainable only through remaining in 
the existing order. And this is already being achieved. No 
matter how much the ‘cultured’ American is still a barbarian, 
the simple people give a correspondingly greater effect of cul- 
ture. The conductors with whom I conversed occasionally im- 
pressed me more than any Westerner has done for years. 
Another direction in which America appears to be ahead of 
us in our own course is that here democracy does not neces- 
sarily involve the government of incompetence. Of course, it 
strives in this direction as if towards an ideal: labour unions 
already stigmatise those who do more than their fellow-work- 


1] have developed this last train of thought in the Chapter ‘Das Ziel’ of 
Schoepferische Erkenntniss, in which I have tried to define in the concrete 
the forthcoming better world. 


CHAP. 68 EASTWARD 321 


ers as unfair, and already, independently of the work done, 
equally high wages are demanded and occasionally obtained. 
But equally hopeless conditions do not await the new world for 
any length of time as they certainly await us. The growth of 
power of the lower strata in Europe is so pregnant with evil 
because even the most self-conscious and self-determined pro- 
letarian still clings to the traditional idea that it is the duty of 
the higher strata to look after him. This idea was sufficiently 
justified as long as there was no free contract between employ- 
ers and employed, but a patriarchal relation or some other 
form of tutelage. As soon as the workman enters into the 
arena of an independent fighter the idea loses its basis, and 
leads, where it continues to live, to fatal consequences in the 
social organism. Among us the proletarians aspire to nothing 
less than the ruin of all prosperous people. Officially they 
also do this in America, but there they will not cause much 
mischief, because precisely the idea which conditions all mis- 
chief from within among us is lacking there: no one pre- 
supposes, as a matter of course, that the wealthy are obliged 
to provide for the poor; there the contract relation between 
employer and employed exists in its pure form; there every one 
expects everything only from himself, and the apparent class 
war is in reality a struggle of interests. America has the 
enormous advantage over us that there development took 
place from the beginning on an individualistic basis, whereas 
in the old world it is only very slowly tending towards it. 
Every emigrant who crossed the ocean worked solely for his 
own interest; he rejected the idea of doing so for others. But 
it was equally opposed to his pride to expect assistance from 
them. Ina poor country this fundamental attitude would have 
led to distrustful bitterness in the long run. In wealthy 
America it has developed into an ever freer and more opti- 
mistic self-reliance, so that the feelings of envy and resentment 
are rare even to-day. The American does not presuppose that 
others have to care for him: this statement summarises the 
advantage which the new world has over the old. Only sub- 
ject to this supposition can free competition lead to good re- 
sults; a permanent order of society, in which every one has 


322 AMERICA PART VIII 


equal rights, can be built on this basis alone. For only if every 
one is accorded the right to preserve his own interests without 
consideration of others can the rule of incompetence be evaded; 
only in this way is it possible for the idea of democracy to 
bring about an effective aristocracy. 

Of course, the psychological factor by means of which the 
new order can alone be realised, is nothing but egoism: this 
explains the inferior condition of everything in America which 
presupposes higher syntheses than individuality. Humane- 
ness in the profounder sense is seldom found among Amer- 
icans, no matter how well-meaning and kindly and even helpful 
they usually are; it is rare that any one feels obliged inwardly 
to assist another, unless he happens to be a specialist in chari- 
tableness; the man who cannot work, well, he may die of hun- 
ger. But we must understand that this deficiency signifies the 
inevitable preliminary expression of a self-determination which 
is growing more firm, and that, regarded from the standpoint 
of a better future, it is humanly more valuable than all drivel 
about humaneness. On the basis of the morals of compassion 
an individualistic order of society is inconceivable; it can lead 
to good only where every one expects everything from himself 
and nothing from others. This fundamental attitude pre- 
supposes a complete transformation of the European soul, and 
until this has taken place the disadvantages rather than the 
advantages of the new position will obtrude themselves upon 
the observer. But here and there it is already completed, and 
then it offers a thoroughly satisfactory spectacle. Men who 
have passed unbroken through the cruel school of the Amer- 
ican fight for existence are hard and elastic like steel; they 
possess an inner tension such as no one else can boast. But 
since they expect everything of themselves and nothing of 
others, they give all the more readily when they are noble- 
minded. Thus, humaneness, hitherto mere reinsurance, be- 
comes a pure gift. It is not impossible that in America, after 
the wild-oats period has been passed, and after crass egoism 
has been tempered by life, the highest civilisation will flourish 
which can be conceived from the Western point of view, a 
highest civilization which seems conceivable only subject to 


CHAP. 68 EASTWARD 323 


these particular historical premises: a purely individualistic 
civilisation, where no one expects anything from others, and 
where every one does everything he can for the community. 


+ 


THE railway now carries me through endless fields and pas- 
tures. I have never yet seen such extensive farming, and I 
have rarely seen it conducted more rationally. No farmer of 
Kansas seems to pursue sport in his agriculture, which the 
European still continues to do, whose management is fre- 
quently more expensive owing to his pleasure in his under- 
taking—he builds too magnificently, preserves what is unprofit- 
able, he leaves fruitful soil fallow for esthetic or sentimental 
considerations, etc.; but no one here seems practical in a petty 
way, penny wise, cunning in the short-sighted rustic’s sense, 
reactionary from lack of enterprise; only what is unquestion- 
ably appropriate is done, and this is done thoroughly. And 
strange: these vast farms, which are nothing but organisations 
for purposes of making money, often present more beautiful 
landscapes than those of Northern Europe, to which so much 
love has been devoted. This is due to the fact that profitable- 
ness is not only the highest practical, but also the highest 
zesthetic principle of agriculture, and for this reason unpractical 
embellishment often seems ugly. 

I am reminded of American farmers whom I have had an 
opportunity of overhearing in conversation in the course of my 
travels. Yes, they are men on an ample scale, and this is 
typical of them, whereas the same is true of us only exception- 
ally. They alone among farmers regard it as a matter of course 
that initiative is the best working capital, that far-sightedness, 
even at the expense of the obvious, is more profitable than the 
most keen-eyed short-sightedness. They are strong men, con- 
scious of their purpose. But they lack all the moral qualities 
which ennoble so very much the farmer who lives on his in- 
herited soil in countries of ancient culture. The heir of a 
nobleman’s estate, the landed proprietor who is the offspring of 
a peasant family that has been living in the same place for 
generations regards his concern, even if he manages his farm in 


324 AMERICA PART VIII 


accordance with the purest economic principles, as a matter of 
sentiment; he feels bound in duty to his property. If he im- 
proves his ploughed land and his meadows, this is done more 
for their sake than for his own; or, if he thinks of himself, he 
does not refer to his person but to his family. Thus, his activity 
has the profound background which the state of being rooted 
in the superindividual cohesion of nature alone supplies, and 
characteristics are trained in his being which express the con- 
sciousness of being rooted there, and these are the best qualities. 
This is why the profession of farming is regarded rightly as 
the noblest of all practical professions: it makes men more pro- 
found and more genuine than any other. In the United States 
this profession is regarded with equal justice merely as 
one industry among others; if agriculture means nothing but 
that money can be earned by it, then earning money exhausts 
its significance. ‘Therefore, the American farmer does not 
stand on a higher human level than the industrialist does in the 
whole world, and this means that as a type he is completely 
superficial; he is a money-producing machine; in fact, he per- 
haps embodies the most unpleasant expression of the modern 
knighthood of industry, because one looks involuntarily in 
him for the traits which otherwise differentiate the farmer 
advantageously from the industrialist, and one is correspond- 
ingly horrified by the lack of them. And this makes me think 
back to China. What an overwhelming difference! If agri- 
culture in America is one trade among others and in Europe a 
trade with a moral background, then in China it is the expres- 
sion of morality pure and simple; there its material advantages 
hardly weigh in the balance. In China the individual belongs 
to the family, the family to the race, the race to the soil on 
which it lives; even the soil itself is not devoid of life, it is the 
earthly symbol of all the ancestors round whose gravestones 
the zigzag furrows of the plough are drawn. Regarded from 
the angle of material advantage, Chinese agriculture seems 
senseless; it implies an endless working at a loss. But it is not 
meant to be a means of profit: it is only intended to secure the 
normal activity for the moral nature of man. In fact, the 
Chinese owes his unique moral qualities to his farm. And if 


CHAP.68° - EASTWARD 325 


one regards his method from this point of view, then it proves 
itself to be superior to that of the Americans. The latter makes 
men rich, but it makes them superficial and dry; the former 
merely continues misery, but it breeds superior men. 

And yet, the American view of agriculture contains the seed 
for a higher condition than that which has ever been realised 
in countries with old civilisations: the condition in which con- 
sciousness of the profoundest relations of life seems no longer 
to be tied to a material substratum. The more freely and pro- 
foundly a man is self-conscious, the greater number of natural 
barriers can he deny without damaging his inner value. The 
highest man whom we can conceive is completely detached; 
he knows no geographical sentimentality, no preference for 
this or that custom, no prejudice against any calling; in fact, 
he knows no exclusiveness whatever in his feelings. And this 
does not mean, in his case, that he is cold and indifferent, but 
that he has attained a stage of inner culture where man can 
love as God loves, Who also does not countenance any differ- 
ences. The tendency of all cultural development points in 
this direction. More and more does mind free itself from 
matter, in which it was originally involved; the individual 
appears less tied in every successive cultural stage. If this 
development took the place of exploding the old form after its 
new content has matured, then it would soar upwards in a 
straight line. But this does not happen, and for good reasons. 
For the new to develop, the old must decay, while the new 
exists only in the form of seed. For this reason, all external 
progress at first brings inner retrogression with it, all the more 
so the further the development of form precedes the develop- 
ment of content. This is the meaning of that progressive 
barbarisation, which is taking place just now in the white 
race. In our concentration on the new form we have lost the 
consciousness of its content altogether. But in a short while 
it will grow again, and then we will advance inwardly as well. 
For this reason we must not take it too tragically if agriculture, 
while becoming modern, is losing its educative power, if 
family ties become loosened, if professional and class idealism 
wane, and even if patriotism in days of peace appears to domi- 


326 AMERICA PART VIII 


nate the popular soul less and less: it is a question everywhere 
of a decay of the form, so that a new content may be formed. 
If, on the one hand, the form, which has become solid, gen- 
erally outlives its content, the new form on the other hand antic- 
ipates content; this results, however, in a most unpleasant state 
of transition. We are in the midst of such a state. We are 
more superficial than any other variety of man, more materially 
minded, meaner; these general characteristics of our time 
appear caricatured in America. But we are only more super- 
ficial because the profoundest in us has not yet grown into its 
new form, we seem more material because our spirituality still 
Jacks the corresponding means of expression and we seem 
more mean because we do not know how to exploit our wealth. 
And the Americans only seem worse than we are because the 
tension between form and content is still greater in their case. 
But sooner or later this unsatisfactory stage will lie behind us. 
And this will happen soonest probably in the New World, 
because no energy need be wasted in fighting against the past 
and the inner content can be embodied in the new form with- 
out looking back. 


aa 


THE further I travel eastward, the more intensive does the 
cultivation appear, and the more autocratic is man in relation to 
nature; one might almost believe that he determines every- 
thing without being determined himself. He has anticipated 
the minor accidents of the weather by compensating measures 
(irrigation, draining, manuring), and he has obviated catas- 
trophes by insurance. His ploughed field does not bear what 
it may, but what it should, his cows give more milk than nature 
intended, and the lack of human hands is replaced by machin- 
ery. And through the anticipated adaptation of his own pro- 
duction to the demands of the markets of the world, he has 
really taken root in the economic centre of the world, so that 
he can adjust himself to them and turn them to his advantage, 
whereas otherwise he would succumb to them as if to fate. My 
thoughts pursue these possibilities uncontrolled and I lose 
sight of them. Suddenly I discover that they have swung over 


CHAP. 68 ! EASTWARD 327 


to the opposite pole of American life, to the condition which is 
rooted, not in creative activity, but in acceptance and suffering. 
And, as happens easily in such cases, I see this condition now 
in a purely favourable light. The specific culture which devel- 
ops in places where man does not regard himself as superior 
to nature, but where, on the contrary, he feels subjected to a 
superior destiny, will never arise in America—and yet it em- 
braces a great portion of the highest which mankind may 
adduce in its own favour. How noble is the pride of the son of 
the desert who believes himself to be completely dependent 
upon fate! How profound is the feeling for nature of the 
Indian, of the Russian peasant, both of whom regard them- 
selves as the lowest elements in the universe! And how sublime 
was the effect of the same root consciousness in China! No: 
humility, modesty, the feeling of nothingness, do not mean 
something purely negative, as America imagines; they too 
can be the sources of a highest power. That is what they were 
during all the greatest periods of Christianity. I think of 
Bach’s: music: this depth, this power, is only revealed where 
man feels, not as the master, but as the servant; not essentially 
as a man of action, but as one to whom events occur. The atti- 
tude of consciousness which seems the only right one to the 
youngest wisdom of the West is, in truth, only one among 
many, and its advantages do not alter the fact that they preclude 
the experiences of a Laotse and of a St. Augustine, of a Bach 
and of a Luther, of a Tolstoy and of a Buddha. 

The relativity of all manifestation! Every one is capable of 
expressing the greatest profundity, but none says everything, 
and no man says absolutely more than another apparently less 
valuable man does. Mighty things are effected by the con- 
sciousness of being at one with God: but no less creative is 
the belief in one’s own baseness and wretchedness. Both 
views of the relation of man to God are empirically equally 
correct, or could at any rate be so. Consciousness of sin neces- 
sarily arises as the soul becomes profound, because the more 
clearly Atman is realised, the more also does personal insufh- 
ciency become clear; the man who identifies himself with his 
person, not with his super-personal self, must discover that it 


328 AMERICA PART VIII 


is not he who acts, but that events happen to him, that he owes 
all progress to ‘Divine Grace.’ No form comprehends Atman 
in itself: all that matters is, how profoundly man realises him- 
self in any form. Just as the mystics of Persia read sublime 
wisdom from the crude Suras of the Koran, just as the Iliad 
was a moral textbook to the Greeks, just as the chastest Chris- 
tianity was never shocked by the most insidious passages in the 
Bible, so every form can become the means of expression of 
the highest. But in every one the highest is presented in a 
particular, exclusive and unique manner. The latest inter- 
pretation of Christianity will never make the older ones super- 
fluous. Incurable invalids should never deny their disease; 
they get further spiritually by believing in tribulation. Adele 
Kamm would not have become a saint as a disciple of Christian 
Science; she would, on the contrary, have become hardened 
by fruitless opposition. The advantages of the Karma doctrine 
weigh against the disadvantage that all misfortune is inter- 
preted as penance and therefore as an end, by which it loses its 
productive influence and strengthens the evil inclination in 
its adherents to see a deserved punishment in every misfortune 
of others. He who denies the positive in New Thought denies 
the positive character of evil and renders the beneficial effect 
which it produces when regarded as punishment, temptation 
or stimulus, quite impossible, and, moreover, does not do 
justice to the fact that it undoubtedly is not something abso- 
lutely negative: one man’s evil always implies simultaneously 
the benefit of another, for nothing individual has its signifi- 
cance in itself, it derives it from the whole. Acceptance, en- 
durance, passivity, all have a quality of absolute good. And 
they have proved themselves to be the only adequate inner 
attitude towards the processes of the world during critical 
times, in which catastrophes of nature, revolutions and wars 
annihilate all effects of individual volition, and in which fate 
tears asunder the whole order of humanity. For there is really 
a super-personal fate, whether one regards it as providence in 
the Christian sense, as racial Karma, or, in a more unbiased 
and more objective form, as Moira; there is a general cosmic 
necessity, the resultant of all that has ever happened, which 


CHAP. 68 EASTWARD 329 


generally rules unnoticed, and often coincides with the result 
of human foresight, but which occasionally condenses itself 
into a sovereign personality and then pursues its own un- 
recognisable aims—and against Moira all protestations of self- 
determination are of no avail. And even if it were not so, 
even if the whole of the modern white race could become con- 
verted to American optimism, it would not bring about any 
absolute progress: it would only mean that at a certain time 
a certain manifestation would offer life the best opportunity, 
that the Hippos has followed the Hipparion; and it would 
simultaneously cause the extinction of that form of greatness 
which seems so uniquely worthy of veneration in Luther, St. 
Augustine and Bach. 

The self-determined and self-conscious individual, like all 
types of perfection, does not include but excludes the others. 
Nevertheless, it is a good thing that it has become an ideal: for 
it relates the existence of every one to a profounder basis. 
Atman is creative spontaneity; the man who knows himself 
self-determined is more deeply rooted in Atman than one 
who feels himself to be dependent. When man changes him- 
self from an essentially determined to a determining factor 
in nature, he traverses in the sphere of practical life the same 
path of evolution which leads the theist to mysticism. Empiri- 
cally the one is as right as the other; God is experienced as 
‘Thow or ‘I,’ according to the spot in which consciousness 
centres; but the man who experiences Him as ‘I’ experiences 
Him more profoundly. Thus, the autonomously determining 
individual is more directly rooted in being than the one who 
gives in and suffers. And that this is so is in this case not only 
proved by subjective feeling, as in that of the mystic, but by 
objective experience: this reveals that man is really destined 
to be the lord of creation. In our world Moira does not possess 
one thousandth part of the power over which it held sway 
among the Greeks, who gave way to their passions without 
inhibition, and who themselves created the forces which 
eventually destroyed them; we have made the elemental forces 
serve us to a large extent. If ever we gain equal mastery over 
ourselves, and exercise it with complete understanding, it may 


330 AMERICA PART VIII 


happen that all pessimistic considerations will fall to the 
ground. For no suffering would seem fated any more; and 
man, externally master of nature, inwardly superior to all 
possible accidents, fully conscious of the meaning of good as 
well as evil, may himself assume the office of Providence. 


+ 


in America my imagination roams inevitably into a better 
future. This proves how very appropriate the concept of prog- 
ress is to this world. Here reflective consciousness has pene- 
trated and seized the whole of life to such an extent that its 
peculiarity is dominant, its forms regulate activity, and its 
ideals have the effect of creative forces. What a power the 
spirit possesses over nature! In originality, versatility and 
inventiveness, the leading people of modern times are miles 
behind the old Greeks. But their development, no matter how 
far it led in many directions, did not take place in the sign of 
progress. Without direction and without inhibition they spent 
their gifts, as unfettered as Indian imagination, and after 
barely two centuries of glory they had come to their end; since 
then they have only rotted and decayed, no matter how much 
mental fermentation they continued to display. The modern 
nations have sown the seeds of their ideals systematically into 
the soil of life, in the assumption that progress is a fact, 
_ and this subordinates the physiological process, which is finite 
in itself, to the infinite mental process. Therefore, no reason 
can be adduced why the modern world should perish or cease to 
continue its development. 

New and progressive humanity has been called to translate 
into progressive life whatever of the ideas of all ages can 
continue to be wholesome in effect. It is peculiarly fitted to 
achieve this translation in view of its special physiology, no 
matter how much it may fail in other directions. The Hellenic 
ideals are more real forces in our world than in that of the 
ancients; sooner or later the same will be true of the Indian 
outlook. To-day, of course, even the preliminary labours for 
the first beginning of what seems to be our destiny are hardly 
accomplished; the present conditions signify embryonic phases. 


CHAP. 69 CHICAGO 331 


The man who devotes himself to them completely achieves 
little of lasting value. I personally belong to too old a 
civilisation to find satisfaction in what is preliminary; I could 
not storm Bastilles or fight behind barricades, because I know 
that such efforts have nothing essential at stake. To be a revo- 
lutionary or a pioneer, one must be blind. But where would 
we be if there were no blind? The phagocytes who battle 
against deadly microbes in our blood are certain to imagine 
that this war is a purpose in itself; and if they thought other- 
wise, no higher being could live. Those who have eyes to 
see have more reason than any one else to respect the blind, 
for it is to them that they owe the very possibility of existence; 
the man of understanding is possible only because millions of 
unreasonable creatures sacrifice themselves. A world in which 
their opinion dominates cannot, of course, please him, but what 
can he demand? Nous w’avons pas le droit @étre fort difficiles, 
Renan wrote already in his day. Dans le passé, aux meilleures 
heures, nous wavons été que tolérés. Cette tolérance, nous 
Pobtiendrons bien au moins de Pavenir. Un régime démo- 
cratique borné est, nous le savons, facilement vexatoire. Des 
gens Pesprit vivent cependant en Amerique, a condition de 
wétre pas trop exigeants. Noli me tangere est tout ce qwil 
faut demander 4 la Démocratie. Et peut-étre la vulgarité 
générale sera-t-elle un jour la condition du bonheur des élus. 


69 
CHICAGO 


M: friendly feeling has gone. Chicago is awful. All life 
is given over to mechanical regulation to such an extent 
that even the visitor surrenders himself unconsciously to it 
out of fear of perishing otherwise. And his instinct does not 
err: the man who cannot, or will not, be an apparatus for a 
special function in Chicago, who is not ready to pledge the 
whole of his being to it, must perish. 

I am profoundly depressed. I have nothing to say against 
making life mechanical: on the contrary, I wish that every- 


332 AMERICA PART VIII 


thing that can be made mechanical would be made so as 
quickly and as perfectly as possible, so that the mind should 
have all the more power and leisure for what is above the 
mechanical; just as antique civilisation owed its high degree 
of perfection to the fact that slaves took away from the cultured 
all work which could be done without free initiative, so will 
modern civilisation only attain to a comparable level when 
machinery has lessened man’s burden. What is so terrible in 
this world is the fact that life is exhausted in whatever can be 
made mechanical; here the tools enslave the man who should 
control them. How did this happen? Lack of population 
made it necessary at first to make mechanical everything that 
could be made mechanical; the profitableness of this method 
then concentrated all interests more and more upon itself, so 
that those things which were above mechanics seemed increas- 
ingly superfluous in life and receded ever further in conscious- 
ness. For unfortunately it is not true that a soulless existence 
cannot give a full consciousness of life; all the powers and in- 
tensity at a man’s disposal can be expanded in machinery to 
such an extent that precisely the man who seems inexpressibly 
one-sided and pitiable to me feels himself to be an accom- 
plished human being subjectively, and looks down upon the 
bloodless ‘soul.? One cannot fairly accuse machinery of devita- 
lising men in the biological sense: the men of Chicago are vital 
through and through, and they consider the conduct of their 
lives superior to all others for this very reason, because it 
enhances the consciousness of life as no other does. And it 
really does so because it compresses all existing forces into the 
narrowest channel of activity, with the result that they reach an 
extraordinary degree of intensity. American business men are 
real Yogis in so far as they concentrate the whole of their atten- 
tion on one thing, and all the typical fruits of Yoga become 
theirs in principle: such as increase of vital power and vitality 
of feeling, increase of all capacities, and enlargement of the 
psychic working capital. What is so awful in Americanism is 
not that it devitalises men, but that it simplifies the psychic 
organism to an unheard-of degree. Americanism proves that a 
complete and full inner life can be lived without a soul, with- 


CHAP. 69 CHICAGO 333 


out intellectual interests, without cultivated feelings. Of 
course this can be done; no lizard, no worm longs to get beyond 
his condition. When it is said that limited individuals are the 
happiest, this is another way of saying: it is much simpler 
within a narrow than within a wide frame to be conscious of 
the whole of one’s life. But limitation does not embody an 
ideal; the only condition which could be called ideal is the one 
in which man became conscious of himself by means of the 
universe, from which he need not exclude anything to be alto- 
gether himself. 

What is terrible in Americanism is that it makes man a 
pauper. Just as it reduces all values to the one of quantity, so 
it reduces the whole soul to one apparatus for the purpose of 
making money. It thus pushes man back to the level of the 
lowest animal. If one regards the facts in this light, American- 
ism seems something so awful that one might suppose it to be 
harmless. Asa matter of fact, it possesses an enormous power 
of attraction, undoubtedly the greatest of its kind in our day. 
It possesses this power firstly because every one cares for suc- 
cess, and the American formula of life is most favourable to 
it; the man who loses no time with ideals, ideas and feelings, 
who does not know any mental and moral inhibitions, gets on 
the quickest. But this is not the chief of its powers of attrac- 
tion: this depends upon the fact that in the American organisa- 
tion even the meanest fellow becomes conscious of the fulness 
of his existence; this formula is so narrow, so limited, that it 
gives tension to every éne’s vitality. And this implies a fearful 
danger: to-day a low condition is held up to humanity as the 
highest ideal. If this ideal is not dethroned soon, it leads in- 
evitably to barbarism, and not to temporary but permanent 
barbarism. 


+ 


I parp a visit to the slaughter-house; it was not a pleasant 
undertaking. And yet Iam glad I went: I will hardly ever see 
machinery functioning with greater perfection; in these stock- 
yards the extreme conceivable limit of the exploitation of men 
and time seems to be attained. So little time is lost here that a 


334 AMERICA PART VIII 


pig is despatched in some twenty minutes from life into a 
sausage, a sheep is dissected in twenty-six minutes, and an ox 
in thirty-five. Every workman does something definite at 
regulated intervals; every one does it in the best possible 
manner. Machinery transmits from man to man. In this way 
a single butcher can comfortably kill half a thousand pigs that 
rush past him in an hour, and everything else proceeds at a 
corresponding speed. 

As I stood there and looked on, I remembered Djuang-Tse’s 
parable of the butcher. Prince Wen Hui had a cook, who was 
dismembering an ox for him. He got hold of it, pushed with 
his shoulder, pressed with his foot, stemmed his knee against 
it: slish-slash! the skin was divided and the knife sizzled 
through the pieces of meat. Everything was done to a beat 
like a dancing song, and he always cut the joints accurately. 
Prince Wen Hui said: ‘Excellent! That’s what I call skill!’ 
The cook put down the knife and replied, turning to the 
prince: ‘It is significance (Tao) which thy servant loves. That 
is more than skill. When I began to cut animals to pieces, I 
only saw animals in front of me. After three years I had got 
so far that I no longer saw the animals undivided in front of 
me. To-day I rely altogether upon the mind and no more 
upon the semblance before me. I have given up the knowledge 
of the senses, and I act only by the stimulus of the spirit.’ 
(After R. Wilhelm’s translation.)—Yes, it is true, such skill 
possesses metaphysical significance: it shows that the move- 
ments of the hands are directly controlled by the principle of 
life; whether unity with life manifests itself in perfect slaugh- 
tering, perfect recognition or perfect being, depends upon the 
aim which a man sets himself. Even the butchers of Chicago, 
like the cook of Prince Wen Hui, must have surrendered them- 
selves to the Tao to achieve something so remarkable. But it ' 
would be horrible if their kind of perfection should hence- 
forth be regarded as the ideal of human development. The 
stockyards are a terrifying instructive image of what seems 
wrong in the aims of modern civilisation. The ideal relation 
between body and mind would be achieved were every ex- 
pression of the soul to be shown as perfectly as in the acting of 


CHAP. 69 CHICAGO 335 


Eleonora Duse. In our world it appears more and more that 
the whole power at our disposal overflows into one tool, with 
the result that while this tool achieves the incredible its owner 
ceases to exist. The modern man with a purpose embodies the 
precise opposite of the Indian sage: if the latter recedes alto- 
gether from external life in order to be all the more real in 
himself, the other renounces all inwardness in order to attain 
to extreme achievement in the outer world. To him we owe the 
marvel of technology, which is an unquestioned enrichment of 
this wandering star; to this extent we must countenance him. 
We must countenance him just as one countenances the fakir, 
the snake-charmer, the clown. But one must not look up to 
him. He lacks that which above all makes a man. . . . The 
spiral of historical evolution has led upon a heightened level to 
a reinstitution of slavery. Man is judged once more in accord- 
ance with his performance alone, once more he has only a 
market value, and this is true not only of compulsory labourers, 
but it applies to every one, for there are no free men in the 
Greek sense any longer; those among us who consider them- 
selves most independent hardly regard themselves differently 
from the way a Pheenician regarded his prisoners of war. Will 
cannibalism revive? In our enlightened world there are un- 
doubtedly fewer inhibitions of the soul to oppose this than 
among superstitious savages. What Rabindranath Tagore says 
is all too true: human flesh and the human soul have nowhere 
been so cheap as in the modern West. No civilisation has 
ever adopted so deprecatory an attitude towards the whole of 
creation as ours has done, exclusively intent as it is upon 
profit. If we abandon ourselves completely to the logic of this 
evolutionary tendency, then intellect, as it becomes unfolded, 
will strip mankind of its soul proportionately. 


+> 


1s not artificial man the ideal aim of the evolution which has 
attained its temporary zenith in the butchers of Chicago? 
Helmholtz used to say that he would show the optician to the 
door who made him so imperfect an apparatus as the lens of 
the human eye: in the same way it is conceivable that all objec- 


336 AMERICA PART VIII 


tive performance could be executed better by some automaton 
than by a living organism, and in idea this substitution by 
something better can extend to the whole of man. Such an 
artificial product has once been conceived: it is Halady, the 
heroine of Eve Future, the visionary fiction of Villiers de PIsle 
Adam. Villiers only fancied the possibility of creating an arti- 
ficial human being in whom mechanisms of absolute precision 
were substituted for living organs; and behold, it followed 
necessarily that his lifeless automaton must excel in capacity 
the highest life. Where even the most gifted minds make 
mistakes, Halady was infallible; she reacted to every situation 
in the best possible manner, she answered with unfailing cor- 
rectness, and always did, in given circumstances, what was most 
to the purpose, and so forth. She would have been God—if 
she had had a soul. 

It is a fact, that progressive evolution necessarily tends to- 
wards two opposite aims, that of the automaton and that of 
God; and the path which is symbolised in the stockyards leads 
directly to the former. If performance is to mean everything 
and the soul nothing, then undoubtedly a perfect artificial 
man stands above the natural one. This consideration seems 
to be instructive. Our progressive evolution, which takes place 
essentially independently of inner progress, has its technical 
and psychological raison détre in the progressive intellectuali- 
sation of the processes of life; this intellectualisation brings 
about a continuous materialisation of what was originally 
purely subjective. As man gains conceptual clarity concern- 
ing all that lives and happens within and without him, con- 
cerning its significance, and whither it could and should lead, 
he rises above it, sees it outside himself, his concepts give 
him the means to deal with it, and at the same time the power 
to control its direction. Then he may change his wishes into 
accomplished facts and his ideals into positive powers. ‘Thus, 
love and justice have been rendered objective in the West in 
institutions, knowledge in technique, ability in organisations 
and factories. This process, if carried on to its extreme con- 
ceivable limit, would result in a complete objectification of all 
the forces of life, so that subjectivity would be out of the ques- 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 337 


tion altogether, and all free strife would be anticipated by 
automata. 

Halady, the ideal automaton, will hardly ever be created; 
but she embodies undoubtedly not only the labour ideal of 
every employer (one should think of the Taylor system! ), but 
also the personal ideal of many a modern man who considers 
himself to be free. Such one-sidedness naturally evokes its 
complementary counter-action: thus, many—and they are not 
the worst—revere to-day as their ideal the Russian peasant, 
that primitive man, who seems absolutely incapable of any 
organisation, in whom no form of objectivity, not even that of 
the concept of duty, meets with understanding, who obeys 
exclusively his uncontrolled subjectivity. It would, however, 
be wiser to centre one’s ideal neither in the automaton nor in 
the mujik, but in God: a being whose spiritualised soul would 
be superior to all intellectual objectivity, and controlled it 
from within in absolute liberty. Intellectualisation in itself is 
all to the good. Even if it temporarily disintegrates much 
that is of value—this very disintegration gives birth to what is 
more valuable still. For it is undoubtedly better to know 
clearly what one does than not to know. A higher consciousness 
necessarily brings about a higher world. What makes our 
phase of intellectualisation a curse is that, having become 
masters of external circumstances, we now have subjected 
ourselves to an objectivity created by ourselves. Soon we will 
rise above it, soon—it is to be hoped—we will recognise that 
our struggle for progress, if led by the spirit of knowledge, can 
lead, not to the unconsciousness of the automaton, but to 
omniscience. 


70 
NEW YORK 


MODERN capital is very wonderful after all. We human 
A beings have no longer any reason to admire ants and bees; 
what they accomplish by way of co-operation, we can accom- 
plish too. We too are without question made for a collective 


338 AMERICA PART VIII 


existence. For whom is loneliness appropriate? or the saint, 
the thinker; only occasionally for the artist; all the rest lead a 
much more complete life together than by themselves. There 
have been and there are many forms of society; every one dis- 
plays specific advantages. The modern life in the great capitals 
suits the modern average man as no other does. Here the speed 
of life and opportunities, means and possibilities for satisfying 
them, necessities and what man can wish for, correspond really 
just as well as in the case of ants in their ant-hills. 

I have never before found it so easy to find my way about a 
metropolis as in New York. The outer necessities of life are 
adjusted so perfectly that it seems one has only to want to be 
anywhere—and one is there already. Everything happens at a 
tremendous speed, and yet one does not experience any feeling 
of being rushed—at any rate, one is rushed less than in London 
or Berlin; one lives more rapidly, but this does not imply rest- 
lessness. Not only is no time lost: life is organised so well that 
one cannot lose time, and this consciousness gives to the soul 
adapted to the system the same peace as the feeling of having 
infinite periods of time in front of him does to the Indian.— 
This is the solution of the external problem of life, the only one 
which is in question for the Westerner. The Indian is in- 
wardly more free than we are, because he does not pay any 
attention to the outer world; he is free at the expense of his 
power over it. We had to surrender our inward freedom tem- 
porarily in order to gain this power, and we did so to such an 
extent, and increasingly, that more and more voices arose who 
clamoured for ‘return.’ They forgot that a ‘return’ is biologi- 
cally impossible, and would lead to destruction all the more 
quickly: once we have entered into relations with the outer 
world, we must renounce it or ourselves; our mentality as 
it has developed precludes the possibility, with rare exceptions, 
of Indian renunciation. Our path to freedom leads over con- 
quered nature. And, in fact, where nature is really conquered 
the possibility of freedom appears automatically. This is 
proved by New York, proved by the whole of American life 
wherever it has found perfect expression. In America precisely 
the ideal of the Indians is attained by precisely the opposite 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 339 


way. Life here in general, compared with that in Europe, is 
essentially simplified, although more importance is attached 
to comfort here than there, and although it is far more wide- 
spread: what is superfluous is eliminated as far as possible; 
what is essential is obtained by the most economical means; 
in the restaurants, for instance, one is hardly waited upon at 
all. Why?—Originally this was undoubtedly due to force 
majeure, the necessity of having to manage with few workers, 
and to obtain from them, consistently with the greatest possible 
respect for their wishes, the utmost conceivable profit; but now 
the régime of simplicity exists even where it might be avoided, 
because most people have grown accustomed to it and have 
realised that one can live without superfluous sumptuousness, 
and that on the whole one lives better in this way. Perfect 
organisation achieves just as much as a state with slaves. But 
whereas such a state demoralises its masters, the modern sim- 
plification of life, which satisfies all reasonable wishes but 
precludes a laxity at the expense of others, exercises a strength- 
ening effect similar to that of asceticism. 

This is, indeed, zhe solution of the eternal problem of life, 
the only one which is in question for us Westerners. Is our 
solution not the best absolutely? ...I1 am reminded of 
another expression of the same relation, our concept of human 
dignity compared with the Indo-Russian idea of the unimpor- 
tance of the individual: it is undoubtedly more desirable to feel 
the same respect for oneself and for others than to disregard 
both equally. Metaphysically, both attitudes signify the same; 
but ours alone lends appropriate expression to significance in 
appearance. Not only in the life of states, but in every life, 
the right to exist seems based upon the fact that it is guarded; 
not because might makes right, but because its psychological 
embodiment depends upon the determination guarding it. The 
man who does not respect himself gives himself up in the 
process—no matter whether any one is there to exploit the fact. 
For this reason, a progressive loss of dignity takes place among 
peoples who lack the consciousness of dignity, whereas those 
who respect themselves, no matter how crude originally, auto- 
matically progress inwardly; for the same reason, violent 


340 AMERICA PART VIII 


Western humanity, and not the gentler one of Russia and 
India, have induced a general condition in which one can, in 
all seriousness, talk of generally accepted human rights. 


> 


THIs city impresses me more and more. As far as the outer 
organisation of life is concerned, America, with its great centres, 
is undoubtedly at the head of mankind. A considerable amount 
of comfort is assured to every one without effort on his side, 
and this inevitably raises the level of life. Here workmen can 
make demands upon life as a matter of course which the Euro- 
pean bourgeois would find extravagant. . It is not merely that 
he lives and dresses himself better than the European, that he 
lives in better hygienic conditions: he regards it as a matter 
of course that he can satisfy his mental requirements to a degree 
which many a man in a higher position among us must deny 
himself. Prosperity is regarded as normal in America. ‘This 
signifies something absolutely positive. 

Why is it that just here, and only here so far, this solution of 
the problem of life has been found, which implies the abso- 
lutely best solution for us Westerners? Much has contributed 
to it: the natural wealth of the country, which rewards all 
struggle generously, the greater energy which is at man’s dis- 
posal here, and many other considerations. But above all, no 
matter how strange this may sound, it has been due to religion. 
All the more important, though otherwise so different, forms 
of American Christianity agree in this one thing, that they 
regard material success upon earth as a tolerably accurate 
touchstone for the grace of God. The man who is pleasing to 
God must become rich; on the other hand, the man who does 
not wish to be rich does not put his talent to the exchanger, 
nor does he seriously labour for the honour of God; he who 
contents himself is regarded as feeble. To what extent such a 
view must stimulate religious natures, such as Americans of 
Anglo-Saxon extraction usually are, is obvious, all the more so 
as the ideal stimulus is given a very real background by the 
banks; they are all reinsured, as it were, by religious pro- 
fessions, and they gauge the amount of credit which they 


CHAP.70. NEW YORK 341 


give by the sect to which their clients belong, and by their 
religious zeal. American Christianity lacks every form of 
animosity against the wealthy. If Calvinism, compared with 
Lutherism, seems worldly from the beginning, then it has 
become even more so in America. At first it was said that one 
had to become rich, but only for the honour of God; one was 
not to enjoy one’s wealth. From this, since something had to 
be done with one’s possessions, the paradoxical capitalistic view 
developed according to which personal life was to serve im- 
personal capital. Slowly the Puritanical note disappeared; 
and the will to power, the desire to enjoy, became the admitted 
motive for gain more and more, even here. But the religious 
origin of the American attitude to possession can still be dis- 
cerned clearly, the idea that divine blessedness and prosperity 
are connected is still effective to-day: it is expressed in the fact 
that prosperity is regarded as a normal condition, and it is 
appreciated, no matter how unconsciously, in exactly the same 
way as other sects value poverty and lowliness. It is not true 
that wealth means the swmmum bonum to the better Americans, 
no matter how much this may apply to many of them: it means 
the exponent of the best, which is something very different. 
No matter what he may understand by this highest: the grace 
of God, self-determined personality, or energy and daring pure 
and simple—prosperity seems to him the normal condition of 
God’s elect, and this gives a spiritual background and a mean- 
ing to the struggle for earthly goods which rob it of all odium. 
Thus, the rich man is not hated but admired by the poor in 
America; thus, the man who has grown rich regards it as a 
matter of course to spend sums for the general good which 
would horrify every European who could afford to do the 
same. | 

It is very easy to find words of mockery concerning a philos- 
ophy which regards earthly and material success as a gauge of 
divine grace, be it only for the one reason that the structure of 
dogma which contains it can hardly bear the gentlest criticism. 
The physical resurrection of Jesus is not an unchallengeable 
pillar of faith. However it seems wiser to understand that the 
new version of the problem of the mutual relation of matter 


342 AMERICA PART VIII 


and spirit implies a Copernican deed of such immense im- 
portance that its possible consequences cannot be estimated as 
yet. Ideals are not fixed, presupposed, and permanently ex- 
istent: man places them into the world from within, and accord- 
ing to what and how he idealises, so does appearance receive 
a new meaning; the same phenomenon, according to the way it 
is understood, thus becomes the expression of the lowest or the 
highest. Until now, wealth was regarded as anti-spiritual or as 
spiritually neutral, which, in fact, is the most obvious attitude. 
It is anti-spiritual in so far as a struggle for earthly goods leads 
in the opposite direction as the struggle for inwardness and 
because possession of wealth facilitates a life of pleasure; it is 
spiritually neutral in so far as it certainly does not assist the 
life of the spirit from the outset, even if it does not hinder it. 
The higher religions have on the whole adopted a disapproving 
attitude to prosperity. This has been good either where 
poverty was a normal condition, as in the case of Northern 
Europe until recently, where all material aspiration was con- 
demned to failure to begin with, or in those hot climes, where 
aspiration is opposed to nature. As soon as effort is generally 
accompanied by success, as soon as wealth appears as a generally 
attainable aim, wherever, moreover, struggle as such belongs 
to the national character, an unworldly view of life is deroga~ 
tory. Since ninety-nine out of a hundred men prefer comfort 
to perfection, the continuance of ascetic ideals necessarily leads 
to a constant opposition between intimate volition and presup- 
posed duty, which is a state of affairs inevitably followed by 
evil consequences. ‘The man who abides by the traditional 
ideals has a bad conscience continually—which is the most un- 
desirable thing which could happen to any one; the man who 
despairs of these ideals thus despairs of ideals altogether, and 
becomes a crass materialist; and he who doubts them but does 
not despair, acquires that fundamental trait of inward frailty 
which characterises the modern man of culture more than any- 
thing else; and all of them lack that idealism which alone leads 
up and on. What is to be done to evade this evil? Two ways, 
and no more, are open. The one consists in renouncing the 
struggle after material good, the other in sanctifying this 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 343 


struggle. The first, which is preached and embarked upon 
again and again, does not lead to the goal and cannot lead there, 
because renunciation is unnatural to the Westerner; not one 
among a million of white men will choose poverty when wealth 
seems attainable. Therefore, only the other way remains. 
Western humanity has marched along this path already for a 
long time. Christianity has risen in a more worldly shape from 
every reform. If Catholicism permitted living in the world, 
although it regarded the monastic life as higher, Luther denied 
the monastic ideal and pronounced professional and married life 
as sanctified. Still, he did not preach struggle for success in 
the world, but contentment within the limits of the given po- 
sition in life; he regarded suffering as higher than action. 
Calvin went further: he raised action above suffering, in fact 
he made this a duty; then, however, he hallowed—and this is 
the decisive factor—efficacy as the touchstone of the chosen. 
Thus, spiritual significance was awarded once and for all to 
success, and the breach between ‘would’ and ‘should’ seemed 
healed in principle. In point of fact, this healing did not 
take place so soon, because the rigid Biblical faith of the 
old Calvinism was opposed to it, and the decisive factor 
had not yet been sufficiently developed in the concepts of 
the older sects. This work was done by those that fol- 
lowed after, and especially the youngest are achieving this 
with most success. No matter how naive, how crude, the 
concept of the Christian Scientist, and the various sects of 
New Thought may be in detail—these religious bodies have 
the immense merit that they definitely accomplish the em- 
bodiment of the spiritual ideal in temporal struggle, and in 
that simplest form which alone can influence the masses. If 
it is taught briefly and simply that the man who discovers 
Christ within him will become rich, healthy, an accomplished 
being in this life, then this doctrine may perhaps be open 
to criticism—but it undoubtedly has a good effect upon the 
masses; it teaches the possibility of uniting their struggle 
for the goods of this world with ideal aspirations. Hence 
the immense success of these doctrines, and, on the whole, their 
very beneficial influence. Nietzsche aimed in principle at the 


344 AMERICA PART VIII 


same thing as New Thought, and his doctrines are more satis- 
fying philosophically; most of the more recent philosophies, 
whether religious or a-religious, aspire to similar ends. But 
the American has the immeasurable advantage that it preserves 
the old concepts of faith, and only gives them a new meaning 
(this also applies to that of William James; it presupposes, 
perhaps without knowing it, the fundamental ideas of Neo- 
Christianity). It will never be possible to overcome Christi- 
anity in us; atavism more than a thousand years old is opposed 
to such a claim; all new ideas will have to be embodied in old 
forms more or less openly in order to attain far-reaching 
efficacy. The singular greatness of John Calvin’s deed con- 
sists in having built the bridge between the modern spirit and 
the old concepts: it is the aim of all later religious com- 
munities to embody the modern spirit more and more in them. 
And that they are really on the right track is clear even 
to-day. Not only are there no happier and less problematical 
human beings than those who have been produced by these 
concepts—they are the most ideally minded; they above all are 
destined to give that spiritual content to modern life which 
on the whole it still lacks so very much. 

America has progressed along this road already so far to-day 
that prosperity is regarded as the normal condition. Thus, 
an unquestioned advance has, practically and ideally, been 
achieved from the point of view of this world: if the general 
alternative is put of choosing between superfluity or indigence, 
then the former is to be preferred. No matter how much better 
frugality may be than dependence upon certain favourable con- 
ditions, and especially than suffering from discontentment—on 
the whole it is certain that the lack of desire is not beneficial 
to the sons of this earth, that the disposition to it is not a privi- 
lege, and, if forcibly acquired, rarely has good results. For 
the man who wants nothing is generally meanly endowed; 
every organ longs for occupation, every impulse for an oppor- 
tunity of expression; the man who contents himself surrenders 
his possibilities of growth. And even worse; not only can 
most talents not unfold themselves freely in narrow circum- 
stances, which impede the development of the noblest quali- 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 345 


ties; a free, fully developed humanity has always flourished 
only upon the soil of contentment. Why? Because the re- 
quirements of nature, so long as they exist, cannot be made to 
evanesce by principles, because they have to be satisfied so that 
the spirit can attain to its freedom. If they are not satisfied, 
inhibition takes place, repression and auto-poisoning of the 
soul; what could have been perfected in beauty grows into an 
ugly malformation. Thus, repressed sensuousness inevitably 
leads to obscene images, embittered hurt leads to spiteful 
revenge; thus, poverty, painfully experienced, inevitably devel- 
ops envy, ill-will and resentment. This, then, hallows materi- 
alism in our era: the way for a nobler life is actually prepared 
by striving consciously only for the best possible conditions of 
life for every one. The more satisfactory these conditions are, 
the less food there is for the ugly, the more there is for the 
noble. A general external condition is conceivable in which ill- 
will, mistrust and resentment, having become meaningless, will 
seem incapable of existence. To this extent, poverty can in- 
deed be regarded as an absolute evil, and the struggle for 
wealth, according to the American Christian doctrine, as more 
pleasing in the sight of God than contentment with given con- 
ditions. The present unsatisfactory condition of white human- 
ity is not due to the fact that it has needs, still less that it cannot 
satisfy them—on the contrary, no other human beings have 
lived in anything like equally advantageous conditions: it is 
due to the fact that contentment is not yet a matter of course to 
them. This unhappy transitional stage will soon have been 
overcome. Then, however, it will appear that the fruits, which 
hitherto have fallen only to the lot of him who renounces the 
world, can also be shared by him who affirms it, and that, no 
matter how little happiness can be regarded as the goal of 
human aspiration, it is yet the best means to its attainment. 


+ 


THERE can, however, be no doubt that in America the chasm 
between external progressiveness and inner perfection is even 
wider than in Europe. In the process of transplantation the old 
roots of the Europeans were mutilated and the newly formed 


346 AMERICA | PART VIII 


have not yet penetrated sufficiently deeply into the ground; 
also, in the main mass ungrafted plants were transplanted 
which, in the richer soil, without schooling have even lost in 
raciness: therefore, it is not surprising that higher civilisation 
corresponds to a lower level of culture. In the old world, too, 
perfection of institutions means little enough in relation to 
man. The objectification of ideal demands in institutions has, 
for all its advantages, brought about the disadvantage that 
they have lost in subjective efficacy. We are more superficial 
than the Indians, because the spiritual forces among us have 
been drawn towards the surface where they now function 
automatically without necessarily drawing the soul into co- 
operation, whereas, in the case of the Indians, the spiritual 
forces operate from the depths, and therefore, where they are 
vital at all, they influence the innermost being. But in the case 
of the European it still remains noticeable that the external 
has been derived from within. Take the most pronounced 
man-of-purpose: if he belongs to an old race, he possesses the 
humanism of our classics, the idealism of the age of discoveries, 
the high ethics of the Middle Ages, and, ultimately, classical 
culture as his living background; this, however, gives him a 
mental atmosphere and lends a significance to his actions which 
exists even when it escapes his consciousness completely. Thus, 
one feels the possibility of profundity through all European 
superficiality, in every mechanical organisation the possibility 
of animation by the soul; one has the same feeling, in the case 
of external institutions which do not directly point to inward 
content, that one has towards new organs which one does not 
as yet know how to employ: one feels that one cannot manage 
them yet, but that one will be able to ere long. Our history 
vouches for this. The Louvre vouches for the fact that the 
Eiffel Tower will one day be a living symbol, the cathedrals 
guarantee that factories will one day serve the spirit. One 
does not experience this comforting feeling in America. Most 
of its facts are nothing but facts without living significance and 
without a background. 

This feeling is undoubtedly only justified with reservations: 
there is no difference of nature, but only of degree, between 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 347 


American and European conditions. No matter how extrava- 
gantly the American universities have been equipped, they 
are wanting in mental atmosphere. The American show build- 
ings are without symbolism, the Americans themselves are 
superficial to the point of soullessness, because the discrepancy 
between externals and internals, which also exists among us, is 
even greater. The Americans are inwardly more crude and 
more youthful than we are, and externally they have gone 
further: thus, the disadvantages of this unbalanced equilibrium 
are more obvious. This would be quite in order, and no word 
would be wasted on it, if the new world, instead of striving 
to emulate the old, did not run ahead and were not developing 
more and more into an example for it. This state of affairs 
causes anxious thought. 

I recall to my mind all the positive and negative factors which 
I have observed in the United States, and the many com- 
parisons between the East and the West which I have made, 
and the general trend of ideas which have become more and 
more precise in my consciousness in the course of my wander- 
ings. It is high time that Western humanity should recognise 
that it will not find, upon the path of ‘progress,’ the ‘one thing 
which is needful’; it only gains a more perfect means of ex- 
pression for it. It is, of course, desirable that it should acquire 
this; nothing would be more foolish than wishing to deny 
it. When this has happened, however, the problem of life 
is not solved, but it arises in an unaltered shape. The only 
absolute ideal of individualised life is determined by the con- 
cept of perfection. Perfection is further removed from the 
most advanced modern individual than from any other being. 
He is further from it not merely than the Chinese, than the 
ancients and the men of the Middle Ages, he is further from it 
than the Australasian negro, and much further from it than 
every animal and every plant. As long as he does not see this, 
but remains subject to the illusion that, thanks to his ‘prog- 
ress, he will get essentially further, no external gain will 
contribute to his inner welfare. His humanity will continue 
to grow more superficial and to shrivel up in proportion as 
his means increase. If, on the other hand, he recognises this, 


348 AMERICA PART VIII 


and turns to the only true goal of humanity, then, but only 
then, what has hitherto been a calamity will turn out to be a 
blessing. It is not necessary that material power, evil as it is in 
itself, should hurt the soul, it is not true that intellectual force 
is destructive; the former can become the organ of divine 
goodness, the latter a means of spiritual regeneration. It is a 
mistake to think that the mobility of our life precludes its 
profundity, for all life is mobile; it is not true that our aspira- 
tions towards the unlimited make perfection impossible in 
principle, since perfection is confined to limits, for the limits 
of aspiration and those of the aspiring individual are two 
different things; every individual will find his limits quite 
early enough. From the point of view of the spirit, it is all 
the same whether a man has a solid ora fluid body. If only we 
get to the point of becoming perfect in our own way, if we can 
make the marvellously manifold manifestations of our body 
altogether the means of expression for the spirit, then we too 
will have reached our goal. 

We must strive after perfection, after perfection alone. Not 
after ‘renewal,’ the pet solution of modern improvers of the 
world. To strive after renewal means expecting salvation 
from a new special manifestation—a new myth, a new form of 
life, a new type of man, who is to emanate from the old. But 
if one thing is certain it is this, that salvation cannot come any 
more from that quarter. The ideal of renewal means nothing 
but the extreme sublimation of the ideal of progress; it might 
help so long as man had not yet learned to perceive ‘being’ 
directly. In those days, the birth of a new form really meant 
the revelation of new content. Externally only ‘progress’ took 
place in the step from ancient heathenism to the faith of Chris- 
tianity, but this process brought with it simultaneously ‘per- 
fection’ in so far as the masses became much more profoundly 
conscious of themselves by this new inner form. Nevertheless, 
even then, conversion meant roughly what an auxiliary con- 
struction means in geometry; Marcus Aurelius, as he was, was 
no worse a man than St. Ambrose; he would not have gained 
by changing his faith; even then such a proceeding was of 
advantage only to the ignorant. To-day, however, most people 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 349 


know much too much to gain by a change of form, too much 
to take a form so seriously that it can exercise its formative 
power tothe full. If a spiritual genius should arise to-morrow 
who proclaimed the best possible religion, his action would 
not mean anything like as much as that of Luther; since men 
are beginning to be conscious of significance in itself, it be- 
comes time for them to put the problem differently. It is no 
more a question of our placing new forms into the world, in 
order to realise ourselves more profoundly by their means, but 
of striving directly after the realisation of being, and this 
means: after giving expression to one’s deepest and innermost 
content in any frame. If man strives after fulfilment, after 
perfection only, then the rest happens of its own accord. Then 
it is inevitable that, according to the circumstances, ‘renewal’ 
takes place as ‘conversion,’ or ‘rebirth’; then the new historical 
manifestation will arise of its own accord if the time demands 
it. No matter how few in number may be consciously beyond 
name and form, unconsciously we are all beyond them; mani- 
festation in itself can never be an ultimate aim to us any 
more. 

We should strive after perfection, after perfection alone. 
As Westerners we are specific creatures of exclusive disposition, 
who must fulfil their special destiny. We will never escape 
from our physiological limits, it will never benefit us to be 
unfaithful to ourselves; every attempt to escape the barriers 
set for us by history can only do harm. We should not wish 
to destroy what we have created, nor undertake violent changes 
from theoretical considerations, but we should develop organi- 
cally towards the condition which beckons to our special aspira- 
tions as its crowning reward. But we should, now that we 
have recognised that our empirical aim is no purpose in itself, 
and our peculiarity no absolute values, learn to live directly 
in and from being. Only then, but then with certainty, will 
‘progressiveness’ lead to the expression of the ‘one thing which 
is needful,’ and thus become the advanced outpost upon the 
road to the goal of humanity. Then it will appear that, no 
matter how much misfortune we have brought upon this world, 
thanks to our mad struggle to subjugate the whole of creation 


350 AMERICA PART VIII 


to our peculiarity, it is true, nevertheless, that we are destined 
to a high mission. For then, thanks to us, the unity of the 
whole of life, its indestructible essential cohesion, will be 
impressed upon the realm of appearances as never before. 
This impression India has never even attempted. The achieve- 
ment of China, so admirable in other ways, failed because it 
countenanced only Chinamen as human beings. But as far as 
the aspirations towards the universality of the West are con- 
cerned, they broke down because, in spite of the correctness of 
their general tendency, they failed to make the right assumption 
from which general and special problems can be solved simul- 
taneously. Those of later antiquity tended to eclecticism and 
syncretism; as Christians they subscribed to the delusion that 
one Church could embrace the whole of the human race; in 
the seventeenth century they took shape in the vague idea that 
all manifestations of thought and belief were manifestations of 
a single ‘natural light,? which was equally innate in every one, 
and they ran dry in the eighteenth century in the shallow aspira- 
tions towards equality. We now possess the beginnings from 
which alone the particular can be determined by the whole; 
the objectification, which the mental forces experienced through 
us, has produced the only tenable connection between the world 
of ideas and that of appearances. Our recognition is objec- 
tive; the connections which have been discovered between vari- 
ous phenomena exist independently of all opinion; the laws 
which we have discovered are valid in themselves; it is there- 
fore possible henceforth that life will be understood and 
formed, not in accordance with a personal formula, but in 
accordance with its own meaning. Humanity has risen to a 
level of consciousness through us which necessarily towers 
above name and form. Thus the ground has been taken away 
for evermore from mental exclusiveness, and a general condi- 
tion has been prepared in which everything single, however 
convinced it be in the pursuit of its particular aim, can yet recog- 
nise itself as a member of the whole. Even to-day it is possible 
for every one to gain certainty concerning the significance and 
importance of any appearances in their general connection, and 
consequently it is also virtually possible to assert oneself in this 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK aa% 


general connection; even to-day a man need not reject what is 
alien in order to be unconcernedly himself. All this must ulti- 
mately lead to an enlargement unheard of in history of the 
basis of life, and simultaneously to an unprecedented pro- 
fundity in each individual tendency of life. Previously, it was 
a question of either national feeling or world-citizenship, but 
soon the one will condition the other; the various types of cul- 
ture and belief will learn to respect each other more and more 
as complementary; ‘the other man or I’ of earlier stages will be 
transmuted to an ever greater extent in conscious co-operation. 
And this will happen almost independently of all good-will, 
because life is a cohesive whole in itself, and the fact of having 
become conscious of a real relation inevitably involves an ever- 
enhanced representation of it in the realm of appearances, be- 
cause objectivity grows into an ever-closer network of con- 
nections. In the form of knowledge, money, mutual economic 
dependency, the foundations are already there on which under- 
standing is inevitable in principle; the same will soon be true 
of our concepts of right and law. Such objectivity reacts in 
its turn upon subjectivity. An ever-increasing number of the 
leading minds deny all natural or cultural exclusiveness, the 
feeling for unity among the working classes all over the world 
is growing more powerful daily; one blessed day the whole 
of humanity will wake up to feel its absolute solidarity, not- 
withstanding all necessary struggle and counter-struggle. To 
bring about this better world—not to Westernise the whole 
of creation—is the mission of us Westerners; our special physi- 
ology, our history destines us, of all men, to translate into 
life what so far the Indians have recognised most profoundly. 
But the formula of our life as such remains one among many, 
and even if we may believe that it is the happiest from the 
angle of the realisation of spirit, because on the one hand it 
demands the complete penetration of appearance by signifi- 
cance, and on the other because it permits in idea the most all- 
embracing manifestation, we must never forget that no 
phenomenon sums up the others, that no value exhausts all 
values, that no kind of perfection excludes the rest, that totality 
is the aim of all development, and that the individual can 


352 AMERICA PART VIII 


never achieve more than his own perfection within narrow 
limits. 

The symphony of the spirit upon earth should, in accordance 
with reasonable prevision, resound with ever-increasing beauty. 
The individual voices should make themselves heard ever more 
purely, harmonise ever better with each other, and be attuned 
to ever-fuller basic tones. The original chaotic and occasion- 
ally baroque, and then again essentially differentiated creation, 
should find its final expression in perfect classicism, in that 
monumental simplicity which contains all wealth within it. 
Change is the way of life, it has appeared different and new 
again and again. If its development were guided henceforth 
by an ever more profoundly self-conscious mind, then tem- 
porary forms must give way more and more to ultimate ones, 
and differentiation must slowly turn into integration." How- 
ever, reasonable expectations are not always fulfilled. The old 
Greek conception that the chief object of the gods was to 
eradicate everything noble upon earth, unfortunately does 
more justice to the nature of reality than the idea of Providence. 
A stupid accident may cut off evolution at any time, catas- 
trophes, plagues or barbarians may rob the spirit again and 
again of its best bearers, and we may remain at the stage of 
attempts until the earth disappears. This planet has ever been 
the site of beginning, not of fulfilment. Towards the end of 
the Greek era the age of ultimate universality seemed to have 
begun, and barbarisation resulted; individualistic culture flour- 
ished in Greece, in Italy during the Renaissance, and it is flour- 
ishing again to-day, and just as the earlier suddenly died out, 
the same may happen again this time. The evolution of the 
spirit has no reliable means in this world, in which a thousand 
different and mutually inimical evolutionary tendencies cross 
one another. But the real aim of the spirit does not lie in this 
world. The infinite, which we try to express within the finite, 
escapes us eternally; perfection, to which everything alive 
strives as its highest fulfilment, is not fulfilment in the earthly 


11 have treated this change of dimension, which is taking place even now in 
the world’s evolution, at length in my lecture ‘Weltanschauung und Lebensge- 
staltung (der Leuchter, 1924). 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 353 


sense, for failure dogs us and death; no ideal was ever com- 
pletely realised—if attainment within the limits of time and 
space were our goal, then all idealism would be senseless. But 
this is not so. The significance of idealism is grounded in 
another, more spiritual world, to which we belong more essen- 
tially than to this one, and all aspiration here below only 
serves to grow in spirit: on the way to the goal, which is an 
imaginary aim in the sense of time, that which is our very own 
becomes realised. We are told to want to found the kingdom 
of heaven upon earth; the more nearly we approach this end by 
overcoming material resistance, the mightier does the spirit 
become; the kingdom of heaven might possibly manifest itself 
completely upon the earth when it has been made perfect. But 
the perfection of the earth is not an end in itself: it is important 
to understand this, not to be unjust to reality. There is no 
doubt whatever that all life ends in death, that all perfection is 
perishable, short-lived and without a future, regarded from the 
temporal point of view. But time does not matter. In every 
perfect realisation of life the eternal becomes actualised, and 
that essential aim is attained for which development in time 
was only the means. To this extent one can say that progress 
in idea is more essential than real progress, although the former 
is realised only in the latter, and that it is not of intrinsic im- 
portance whether cosmic accidents permit full realisation to the 
spirit upon earth. We may believe Master Eckhart when he 
declares: ‘If thou do not fail in intention, but only in capacity, 
verily! thou hast done all in the sight of God.’ 


+ 


THE ship which bears me home to Europe is just passing the 
Statue of Liberty. To how many has this sight not promised 
a new and a better life! For how many millions does it not 
symbolise their ideal! I remember the conversations which I 
have had with emigrants: there was not one among them who 
was not filled with pride by the fact that he was a free Amer- 
ican. . . . I cannot see anything ideal in the condition of the 
new world; it is not really more free than the old one. Not 
freedom so much as arbitrariness predominates in it—the arbi- 


354 AMERICA PART VIII 


trariness, not of one, as in Asiatic despotism, but of every 
individual, which is not better. The universal franchise has 
recalled to life the right of physical might in a refined form: 
through playing upon moods and instincts, through sugges- 
tion and the mechanical result of clever intrigues, it is now 
being decided who is to govern, and this method of arriving 
at a decision differs from the method of the days of robber- 
knights, precisely as seduction differs from violation. ‘The 
corruption and corruptibility of officials are not much rarer 
phenomena than in Russia. The ‘will of the people’ expresses 
itself ori the whole as the rule of incompetence. The power 
which is not given to superior men has fallen to the lot of 
machines (trusts, the caucus, franchise organisations) and the 
assumption of the equality of every one, not only before God 
and the law, but before men, has lowered the general level to 
an extraordinary degree. Most of the advantages of America 
over Europe to which I have pointed in my observations exist 
at present only in idea. . . . And yet I too see a symbol in the 
Statue of Liberty: it signifies the first, however mistaken, em- 
bodiment of the political ideal. 

Every man is essentially free; that is to say, his innermost 
being is subject only to his own determination. Of the two 
sinners who languished to death on either side of the cross, 
Jesus could promise paradise only to one, the one whose will 
met His half-way; He could not do anything for the other, 
who shut his heart against Him. No power from outside ex- 
tends down to the deepest subjectivity. Thus, one has only 
really convinced him who does not merely give way to the 
pressure of suggestion, but who has chosen independently what 
one has pointed out to him; in this way one may well violate a 
woman, but never force her to willing surrender, and only he 
really possesses her to whom she gave herself of her own free 
will. This innermost, purely autonomous self is not, however, 
from the very start, the centre of the conscious personality: 
originally it exists only in the form of a germ, it develops 
gradually, grows slowly into the personality, and one cannot 
say that a man’s life is actuated by inner freedom until this self 
has been fused with the centre of his personality. A young 


a 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 355 


soul reacts merely instinctively to outside influences; its real 
self is asleep, and when it wakes it lacks initiative. It cannot 
do more than say yes or no to what happens to it, and as such 
judgments emanate only exceptionally from recognition; where 
intellect is hardly existent, it has to be guided. At this stage, 
pure force, directed by insight, which disregards all intention 
and desire, is the best treatment. At a higher level force can 
be supplanted by the reaction of psychic ties—faith, preju- 
dices, concepts of duty—and this reaction from the outside is 
accepted passively, but yet in conscious agreement. Here man 
experiences his being directly in the reflected image of objec- 
tivity which calls out his answers. On the highest level, which 
corresponds to the perfected birth of the self, man cannot recog- 
nise any external motive as ultimate. Here he knows that, 
whatever one might force him to, whatever he might do by 
instinct, nothing really happens through him so long as his 
free will does not take the initiative in the intelligent conscious- 
ness of what he wants himself; here he lives directly, not 
merely indirectly, at the instance of his own freedom. It is 
only at this stage that he is really free. He who has risen to 
this level no longer wants to force others, either to violate them 
or to influence them by suggestion, since the same applies in- 
trinsically to all. His wish to influence others merely takes the 
form of guiding the freedom of every one to its own perfection. 
This process of development of the individual has its reflection 
in social life. The more developed a nation is, the more re- 
sistance does it offer to any purely external influence. Thus, 
all Governments see themselves compelled to take the will of 
those they rule more and more into account, and the wisest of 
them deliberately aim at educating the people to complete 
autonomy. 

In the case of nations, just as in that of individuals, this 
process does not proceed along a straight course, but in the form 
of an agitated, frequently broken curve, whose lines some- 
times point backwards, through periods of stagnation; and as 
men in process of growth are never clear as to what they really 
want, they commit mistakes. ‘Thus the emancipation of the 
spirit has led first of all to the rejection of all inherited wisdom, 


356 AMERICA PART VIII 


to immorality, positivism, nihilism—philosophies which are 
infinitely more foolish than those handed down from times 
of greater limitation. ‘Thus the emancipation of nations, 
which leads to the deliberate destruction of the old order, which 
had grown up organically from cumulative experience, occa- 
sions at first more mischief than good. In both cases the same 
misunderstanding dominated: they thought that the content of 
the old laws and regulations was wrong, whereas, in point of 
fact, it was true and justified; what they had to change was 
merely the state of affairs which had been forced upon them 
externally; the developed individual wants to do of his own 
accord what the undeveloped individual has to be compelled 
todo. If the former does not require any prejudices, any dog- 
matic beliefs, any principles or concepts of duty, and 
actually lives without them, this is due to the fact that princi- 
ples, dogmas and duties are the objectification of what the 
spirit wants profoundly and ultimately itself—and as such they 
are, of course, insufficient, because never exhaustive, never un- 
challengeable and always rigid and inflexible; the man who is 
free, however, lives directly and consciously from his inward 
being, where volition is the creative cause of all ideas of duty. 
It is true that the man who is perfectly free symbolises an ideal 
which in the course of history has been realised only on very 
rare occasions. The development of the soul does not begin by 
the growth of nature-like directness—man in his natural condi- 
tion knows nothing of himself; but it happens that the objectiv- 
ity which the mind produces from itself corresponds with in- 
creasing accuracy to the aspiration of the latter, just as the disso- 
lution of objectivity also only succeeds stage by stage. The 
goal, however, is to get beyond all necessity of mediation 
everywhere, to live directly out of one’s inmost depth, to con- 
centrate one’s consciousness in it so perfectly that the personal 
wishes reflect its forms of growth, that one can say with St. 
Paul: it is not I who live, but God lives in me. This is achieved 
only by him who has conquered his personality, who has become 
so profoundly inward that he finds his highest bliss, not in satis- 
fied self-interest, but in sacrifice, in giving without wanting to 
take again, in God-like spontaneity. 





CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 357 


The desire for freedom is awakened generally, as has been 
said, before recognition is ripe, before it is aware of what it 
means, how it is expressed, and this necessarily brings with it 
temporary coarsening and superficiality. The New World 
illustrates this state of things with terrifying clarity. The 
Americans have understood less than any one else that, if the 
barriers which were imposed from without are to be removed, 
this is not for the purpose of dispensing with barriers alto- 
gether, but that they must give way to others which have been 
chosen freely. They do not want it as yet to be true that the 
traditional orders among men, however conventional in detail, 
express realities; that differences in the age of the soul, in 
character, in talent, and even in inherited position, are some- 
thing just as real as the differences between chemical elements, 
and that no God, as long as he remains in the sphere of nature, 
can act contrary to its laws; they want to be free without taking 
empirical reality into account. The consequence is that life, 
instead of becoming more self-determined in a wider frame, 
loses its autonomous nature progressively. In the most modern 
democracy actions are determined mechanically to a degree 
which never existed under ancient tyranny: there, at any rate, 
something living took the decision, good or evil; here accident 
decides, the force of circumstances, the conjunction of events; 
here life is absolutely dependent on inorganic forces, as the 
ignorant chemist is dependent on the ‘sweet will’ of his in- 
gredients; if an explosive is compounded by his blind hands, he 
is blown up. But this experience had to be gone through. 
Only overpaid recognition is a permanent possession for 
humanity. 

Some day or other, democracy will have been overcome. 
Then, however, it will be revealed, to the surprise of many, 
that humanity was conscious once more, in following its dark 
instincts (‘in ihrem dunklen Drang’—Goethe), of being on 
the right track. That lack of outer barriers which conditions 
tyranny and barbarism in America to-day will grant to a 
humanity of the highest inward culture the corresponding 
frame of life. Humanity will have acquired so much know- 
ledge by then that its attitude to the soul will not differ from 


358 AMERICA. PART VIII 


our attitude to nature. It will countenance psychic facts in 
exactly the same way as material ones; it will grant the man 
who inwardly is on a higher level the higher external position 
as a matter of course, without strife, well aware of the fact that 
it is just as senseless to decide a man’s value by a majority 
vote as to decide the question of the existence of Selenium. 
Humanity will set its own limits, as a matter of course, 
wherever it needs them. Thus, imposed barriers will no 
longer be necessary. And then something surprising will 
happen: the idea which underlies democracy at its extreme 
will prove itself, not only true in principle, but demonstrable 
in appearance. What is its ultimate meaning? No other than 
that the spirit is more powerful than nature; that no natural 
limitation is insurmountable, that there is a divinely creative 
power in the soul of man. And this is really so. And if this is 
correct, if humanity will get so far one day that it can live 
entirely in the spirit, then it will no longer need to recognise 
any order of nature as unalterable; then what to-day is re- 
futed by all facts will be found true. Those differences be- 
tween men which I compared with those between chemical 
elements, do not really imply ultimate truths; tradition, talent 
and race are not insurmountable: it is possible to overcome them 
by the spirit. In single cases this has always happened. No 
race was ever responsible for the genius—the very greatest men 
were always accidents from the standpoint of nature, pure 
children of the spirit, just as no nature has ever produced a 
saint; a saint is, on the contrary, the result of the conquest of 
nature. To-day, however, this overcoming of nature is already 
taking place far and wide, and to a greater extent and in a 
higher degree than is supposed; and this contributes to the chaos 
of our time; even to-day the necessary connection between 
determination by nature and inner calling, which used to be so 
firm, has been loosened in principle. Only with the greatest 
uncertainty can one deduce a man’s talents from his ancestry 
in the modern West; it seems progressively more easy to rise 
to any level from any natural basis. And that does not mean 
that one degenerates; it means, rather, that the spirit is gain- 
ing the victory over nature more and more. This overcoming 


“ss a ee ee ee ee 


ee 


CHAP. 70 NEW YORK 359 


of original limitations takes place on the grandest scale, and 
it takes place correspondingly crudely and summarily in Amer- 
ica, the melting-pot of races and traditions. The result so 
far is not one of general advantage, because most of those 
who want to get beyond their nature have attained to so 
little dominion over her that emancipation has stripped them 
of their best possibility of culture. That will change. The 
more spiritual we become, the more independent will we be 
of tradition. The miraculous effects of Yoga fall to the lot, 
not only of individuals, but also of groups and nations. Just 
as the Indians, in spite of their lesser genius, have gone further 
in self-recognition than we have, by absorbing themselves 
more profoundly in their being; just as the righteous will 
have no precedence at the gate of heaven over the sinner; just 
as it can happen to every one to be reborn in the spirit, an 
event which severs all the ties set up by physical birth: just 
so it may happen that precisely where humanity seems most 
deeply entangled in matter its vanguard will first get beyond 
all the bonds of nature. Yes, it will surely be like that: the 
spiritual part of man is strengthened in battle, and unfolds it- 
self all the more completely and freely, the more resistance 
is overcome. Thus, our present materialism is verily the 
guarantee for our future spirituality. The suitable body for 
this has already been prepared in America of to-day. Human- 
ity of to-morrow will undoubtedly live in an external condi- 
tion which will resemble most closely that of the United States. 
It will not recognise any rigid forms, and will allow absolute 
self-determination to every one. It will, in rising above all 
nature, and in taking account only of what springs from the 
spirit, even realise the ideal of equality. In the United 
States the outer form has run far ahead of its content—which 
happens always where it does not lag behind. It corresponds 
less to the Americans than it would to the Chinese, the only 
people who have ever come close to the cultural ideal. Slowly, 
very slowly, the soul grows into its body. It takes longer than 
the reverse process, because, whereas the body must do what 
the soul wishes, the soul is not directly subject to the former’s 
volition. If the soul, however, has developed as far as outer 


360 AMERICA PART VIII 


form anticipated, then it possesses perfect means of expression, 
Then it appears to be without any inhibitions whatever. Then 
what democracy wrongly supposes will turn out to be true of 
the man of to-day. Then it will have been proved that the 
spirit is truly the master of nature... . 

The Statue of Liberty disappears in the grey distance. Once 
more I float upon the endless sea. Yet a little while and I will 
be back again whence I set out. I will be back in that Europe 
which seemed so young to me when I contemplated it against 
the background of Asia, and which appeared so old when I 
compared it with what is going on in America, pregnant with 
our future. 





PART NINE: HOME ONCE MORE 





71 
RAYKULL 


H OME once more. I feel as after a heavy storm at sea: as 
long as it lasts I can keep going, but as soon as I step on 
land the ground sways beneath me and I succeed only with 
difficulty in maintaining my equilibrium. In this way the 
outer world confuses me where it does not move about me any 
longer. I must see that I exchange the consciousness of the 
traveller as rapidly as possible for that of the resident. During 
my travels I have treated the outer world as a mere reaction; 
at home this is impossible. Wherever I surrender myself, I 
return to myself unchanged; wherever I look out, my own 
likeness looks me in the face; everything in Raykiill bears the 
stamp of my spirit or of that of my race. This oppresses me. 
It seems to me as if I were a captive. AndsoI am: here I will 
have to persevere in a particular form of existence; here I am 
responsible in a definite way; here I may not be Proteus. .. . 

Of course, my natural being, my hereditary Adam, takes 
quite a different attitude to my return: he feels himself height- 
ened like Antzus by the renewal of contact with the soil from 
which he sprang, in which he is rooted, and in which he is 
accustomed to act. It seems to him as if the progress made by 
Raykiill was his own progress, as if he himself had grown in 
the trees, as if his own nature had been improved by the irri- 
gation of unfruitful moors. This may be granted to him—but 
what is happiness to me? My thoughts go back to the motives 
which drove me out into the wide world. At that time I went 
forth to escape the natural man. ‘This aim I feel I have 
achieved. No matter how vital he has remained, he will never 
control me again, never again reach out beyond his sphere. 
There is hardly any danger any more for me that I will crystal- 
lise into a personality, or that I will take seriously any special 
manifestation inside or outside myself. I may therefore prob- 
ably countenance nature in me henceforth with less concern. 
Only he who is not free entrenches himself against her or flees 
before her; the free man need eels, need condemn nothing. 

393 


364 HOME PART IX 


No doubt in future, when the transitional period has been 
overcome, a fuller personal life than I have led before awaits 
me. Only the transitional period. . . . In the beginning it 
will not be easy for me to give my conscious consent to living 
as a definite being. Proteus revolts against it. But must he too 
not learn to keep still. If I supported him within me above 
everything else, it was from fear of crystallisation: since this 
has been obviated he can no longer embody an ideal for me. 
It is now my business to reveal the same superiority in a durable 
manifestation as formerly in a changing one. External barriers 
oppress me still too easily. If I were quite free inwardly, then 
I would be no more afraid of ties and limitations than I would 
have need of them, then I would not feel such an imperious 
desire for external freedom. Much of that which seems free 
in me is in reality only a variety of bondage. I am still all too 
dependent upon my independence. I must be able to sur- 
render myself at will completely to my particularised exist- 
ence, to become completely one with a definite form, to control 
my inclinations, feelings and interests completely. I must get 
so far that I am not only unfettered by name and form, but 
can allow myself to be tied down at will. 

But now to the main problem: have I come nearer to self- 
realisation on returning from my wanderings? I must be 
nearer to it. Every single possibility of life which I have ex- 
perienced has made me more clearly conscious of what is essen- 
tial in the metaphysical sense and what is not. J, as an indi- 
vidual, have remained the same, whether I experienced as an 
Indian or a Chinese, as a Christian or a Buddhist; I now know, 
from living experience, that the essential truth lives beyond the 
sphere of definite manifestation. It is a question of presup- 
position whether this or that form manifests itself; it depends 
upon the purpose one has set oneself whether one places a 
higher value on this one or the other. For the outer formation 
of life, for purposes of objective scientific recognition, the soul 
of the European is the most serviceable; an Indian, for realisa- 
tion in the psychic sphere, a Chinese for rendering concrete 
an idea, a Japanese for the esthetic understanding of nature, 
andsoon. No formula is the highest in the metaphysical sense, 





CHAP. 71 RAYKULL 365 


every one represents a possible expression of the absolute, 
every special expression involves specific limits. The various 
souls which I acquired have remained mine as possible atti- 
tudes of my own self; my nature has become correspondingly 
richer. Thanks to the recognition of the ways of metem- 
psychosis, my being, which perseveres through all the trans- 
migrations of the soul, has become clear to me as a photo- 
graphic negative to such an extent that I think daily: the 
positive side must reveal itself even to-day. But it has not yet 
appeared. At the moment I do not feel more but less secure 
than heretofore. Too much in me is in the ferment of change 
and transposition. That will cease. The processes of nature 
take their course. They need much time. Let them have it. 
I, however, will wait in silent trust. 

During these days I have played a good deal of Bach in 
the fine old hall with its magnificent acoustics. Why does his 
art mean so much to me? Because its spirit is throughout a 
spirit of keynotes and of basic tones. ‘There is an intimate 
connection between the depth of thought and that of tone. 
Just as one profound thought controls from within a thousand 
superficial ones, so an infinite number of melodies can be con- 
ceived in higher keys of one single basic tone, whereas every 
given melody in the treble is related to only one in the bass. 
Modern music is entirely confined to the treble, and only lets 
one imagine basic tones indirectly: that of Bach is nothing 
but a single basic tone, and to this extent it is the foundation 
of all other music. No musician has ever been as deep as 
Bach; to the metaphysician he is therefore more congenial than 
any other. For the metaphysician has to play the bass in the 
symphony of the spirit of recognition, to find and sound the 
basic tones in the music of the world. And while I sink my 
soul in Bach a sigh escapes me: if only I could think as this 
man composed, if my recognition could mirror such depth as 
his music does, then I would have reached my goal. 


+> 


my life flows on without event. But instead of rolling by 
more slowly, as heretofore, when every hour brought new im- 


366 HOME PART IX 


pressions, it moves on immeasurably more quickly. With the 
haste of the cinematograph one season follows upon another; 
if my journey seems to have lasted decades, I might feel now, 
at the expiration of a generation, as though I had only returned 
yesterday. . . . How wonderfully the soul adapts itself to 
circumstance! In the hustle of great towns, in the turmoil of 
events, in the chaos of impressions, its consciousness of time 
expands to give place to everything; in uniformity it shrivels 
up. In this way the hermit in the desert is not threatened with 
boredom any more than the man of the world. 

And as I live on quietly, the remembered pictures of the 
wide world continue to pale. Already I can only recall India, 
China and Japan with difficulty. Once again everything hap- 
pens differently from what I thought: I expected that the 
many forms of life which stimulated my mind so powerfully 
would continue to operate as such within me. Instead of that, 
they have been transmuted and what lives in me now is some- 
thing different, something single, something very new to me, 
whose origin I can deduce only by reflection from multiple 
experience. It is incredible how unsuspecting man is concern- 
ing himself: the personal ego merely watches what takes place 
upon the stage of consciousness, it has no access to the wings, 
it does not know who will appear, whence the players come, 
what they will perform, and when it realises nevertheless that 
the play is its own creation, it sometimes makes it feel un- 
canny. . . . What is new and incredible to me is that I no 
longer have any desire for metamorphoses. Not that I regard 
the limitations of Hermann Keyserling differently from here- 
tofore, or that I feel at one with them inwardly: they hardly 
limit me any longer; I know myself to be free in spite of and 
in them. I re-read the passages which I wrote before my de- 
parture: no, these motives apply no longer to-day. And I 
begin to understand why this is so. 

One condemns most violently in others what one dislikes in 
oneself; the saint condemns no one, the sage regards no one 
as altogether foolish. Thus, my desire to deny all manifesta- 
tion was mainly due to the fact that I was not independent of 
any. Being subject to impressions and influences to the high- 


CHAP. 7I RAYKULL 367 


est degree, I preserved my liberty indirectly by constant change. 
But it is no doubt better to live directly in freedom. Char- 
acter (in the usual sense) implies, of course, limitation; no 
developed individual can reverence ‘personality’ as an ideal; he 
is beyond prejudices, principles and dogmas. But he may 
yet be positive, ‘without character, no less securely and firmly 
than any rigid individual, only from a basis of higher recog- 
nition. The Yogi says: neti neti—I am not that—to all nature, 
until he becomes one with Parabrahma. After that he denies 
nothing, he affirms everything positive within and without him- 
self, because no manifestation limits him any more, because 
now each one is an obedient means of expression to him. In 
this sense a change of dimension has also taken place in my 
conscious life, no matter how far I may be from the goal. I 
need stimulus far less than before to feel myself alive, my 
progress becomes ever less dependent on experience; that which 
used only to answer now commands in me. But when I 
think back to the long road I have traversed, and ask whether 
I have wandered on unnecessary bypaths, I must answer in the 
negative more than ever. It is eternally true, as Indian wis- 
dom teaches, that the soul must go through all experiences 
until it becomes ripe for the blessedness of knowledge, for 
there is no other way than this; he who attains his goal without 
apparent deviation attains it only seemingly. Why? Because 
the goal does not consist in external insight, but in inner change. 
To every level of existence a special truth corresponds; the 
butterfly’s formula of life is not appropriate to the caterpillar; 
no matter how much the former may be the latter’s aim— 
precisely in order to become a butterfly it must previously be 
a caterpillar and a cocoon. The same applies to the human 
soul. This unfolds itself in recognition: every higher recog- 
nition, however, presupposes a specific new state. Before this 
has been attained, no abstract knowledge is of any avail. He 
who turns the left cheek according to Jesus’ direction, with 
fear and hatred in his heart, is not a saint; nature must have 
become equal to the ideal. This, however, is brought about 
only by experience. Every portion of the soul must have 
recognised individually what it really wants and what it really, 


368 HOME PART IX 


should do, what its perfection consists in, for it does not recog- 
nise inexperienced truths, and in order to experience enough it 
must expose itself a great deal. For this reason, the richer a 
nature is, the more experience does it need correspondingly. 
For this reason, the by-way round the world means to man in 
every sense the shortest conceivable way to his essential being. 

This much I had already realised before. But what has only 
been revealed to me lately and is the true reason why I can 
and will renounce the Protean ideal, is the fact that the recog- 
nition of being does not destroy but fulfils one’s humanity. I 
knew, of course, that every manifestation is capable of bringing 
Atman to complete expression, but I thought that this applied 
to the consciously spiritualised man in the sense that nature 
would develop into a transparent shell without a meaning of its 
own. To-day I see that this is not so; that nature, on the con- 
trary, develops into the living body of the spirit, and that the 
spirit is completely realised exactly in so far as it becomes 
expressed completely in its laws. If mutability is more than 
being fettered, perfect freedom can only begin beyond the 
former: it is possible to express, within a seemingly limited 
frame, what was inexpressible in the Protean one. Yes, one 
life is more than many, because complete experience is only 
possible in the one life which has been fully and willingly 
accepted. Christian mysticism has seen farther than the 
Indian, in so far as it differentiated between what God is in 
Himself, and what He appears to be, where He reveals Him- 
self to man. He may be above everything which concerns 
creation—as man, He appears perfectly human. There is 
nothing human which could not find in Him its fulfilment and 
its sanctification. For this reason, divinity here below is con- 
ceivable only in correlative humanisation. And so it is. That 
form of divinity, of which I used to dream so much, is not a 
highest ideal; it means merely a spiritualised form of in- 
humanity. In striving after this condition I committed the 
very mistake which my theory has so often denounced. I pre- 
ferred a particular manifestation as such to others. To-day I 
know the truth. And in saying yes with determination to 
what I happen to be, I do not feel more limited, but more free. 


CHAP. 71 | RAYKULL 369 


Time passes like a flash. The more immediately I live in thu 
spirit, the more does time accomplish, but the more unreal 
does it seem to me. The Psalmist must have spoken the truth 
when he proclaimed of Jahveh: For a thousand years in thy 
sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the 
night. 


+ 


THE world war is raging all around me. More and more 
nations fall upon one another, their struggle becomes ever 
more appalling. And it is not enough that they attempt to 
destroy each other—mutually they defame and insult each 
other through the mouths of their intellectual leaders, in- 
ordinately, like the antagonistic heroes of Homer. All har- 
mony, all understanding is abolished, the unity of mankind 
seems to exist no longer. 

For me it continues. I see in this catastrophe only a crisis 
like many that have occurred already, if not of as wide a range, 
at any rate of the same significance; a crisis which does not 
cut short development, but quickens its progress. Just as all 
progress leads through periods of reaction, during which the 
lower and repressed impulses rise up and temporarily gain the 
Victory, so it was to be expected that the more universal world 
of to-morrow would be introduced through a prelude of un- 
precedented national hatred, and that the future solidarity of 
nations would be preceded by wars of extermination; just so 
the era of peace which began with Augustus was initiated 
through the most cruel civil wars. During such crises, human- 
ity offers a revolting spectacle. In earlier days I would have 
turned away from it in disgust. To-day I can do so no longer: 
I know that in my innermost being I participate in it. Not 
that I am a party to it—for me the whole living creation is one 
single whole; I do not share a single one of the one-sided feel- 
ings which inspire the combatants. But I cannot dissociate 
myself any more from the whole, I cannot say, as formerly: 
nescio vos. For I know that I am one with the whole of my 
time, and to this extent I share in the responsibility for its fate. 

The more profoundly I took root in my freedom, the clearer 


370 HOME PART IX 


it became to me that nothing is more opposed to it than the 
desire for isolation, nay, that the recognition of essential free- 
dom has its correlation in the feeling of one-ness with the 
whole of nature. As.a metaphysical being I am, of course, my 
own creator. But regarded empirically, I am nothing at all by 
virtue of myself. I owe my talents and my point of departure 
in life to my parents, my earliest influences to my country; I 
owe to my age the mental content in which I share, the im- 
pulses which drive me on; and finally, I owe to the whole earth 
the manifold experiences which have made me what I am 
to-day. I myself, as a conscious person, may put down to my 
own merit only the fact that, assuming my existing energy for 
work, I have worked at myself unswervingly—its possession 
even is not due to myself, much less its success. It is not I 
who evoke my thoughts, they come to me. Thus I am in- 
separable from the universe. If I accept myself, I also affirm 
the universe; if it is my duty to perfect myself, this duty im- 
plies the further duty of co-operating as much as ever I can in 
the perfecting of the world. 

I can deny what this world is to-day just as little as I can 
deny my personal condition. The latter is the product of all 
that has ever been; if the processes of the world had taken a 
different course, I too would be different. Conversely, how- 
ever, the world would necessarily be more perfect if I were 
more perfect, so that its future character is conditioned on all 
sides by the volition and achievement of its present elements. 
And of all the elements without a single exception: even the 
transient gesture of every individual continues to be effective 
through zons of time. Thus, no one can or may sever himself 
from the whole. 

This truth, of which only few are aware in peace days, in- 
spires the impulses of most people during a war of defence. 
Every individual among the combatant nations to-day feels 
the desire to give his life for something greater, every one of 
them feels that he should join with his fellows, that he may 
not cut himself off, that he must share in the fate of his nation, 
be it crime or happiness or death. My consciousness lives 
beyond the sphere of national boundaries, therefore I cannot 


CHAP. 71 RAYKULL 371 


be a party to this strife. But events touch me no less pro- 
foundly for all that: just as there are beings who must repre- 
sent, according to their nature, certain special aspirations, so 
there are others who are destined to embody what is general 
and common to all. And this generality is no abstraction: it 
is a living entity, it is even more concrete than anything par- 
ticular is, since the latter only serves it as a transient means. 
All the profoundest and most essential powers of life are super- 
individual and supernational! it is these which give significance 
and direction to particular events. The consciousness of the 
metaphysician is directly rooted in them. His participation in 
the processes of the world consists in lending expression to 
these powers. 

And this participation is no less important than that of the 
warrior. What would have happened to Europe if the con- 
tending voices had not been drowned again and again by a 
single one, which could not countenance any partisanship and 
only knew of love? The profoundest will of humanity spoke 
through this voice. The more self-conscious humanity be- 
comes, the more must this will dominate, the more will it 
animate from within all special aspirations. I anticipate a time 
when human power and courage will aspire no longer to tem- 
porarily limited, but only to final and general aims. For the 
ideal future will not be distinguished by the fact that colour- 
less sufferance will take the place of heroism, but that heroism 
will serve truth instead of error; that all earthly powers will 
be directed throughout by the spirit of knowledge. Never 
will they cease to be effective as such. It is one and the same 
bravery which is evinced by the robber and by the confessor 
of faith, and weakness remains weakness, whatever its cause 
may be. As long as heroism and wide-heartedness appear as 
inevitable opposites, humanity will not be ripe for univer- 
sality. It is not ripe for it yet. In order that it may become so 
soon, those few in whom a profounder consciousness is alive 
already to-day, must never tire in proclaiming their knowledge. 

I am thinking of the Bodhisatva, who vowed not to enter 
Nirvana as long as one single soul was still pining unre- 
deemed in his earthly fetters, and I compare his picture with 


372 HOME PART IX 


that of the sage who, indifferent to the world, only strives after 
the realisation of God: the sage is not altogether beyond name 
and form as yet, for, after shedding all fetters, he is still left 
with the one fetter of the impulse for recognition—it is he who 
wants to see God. The other, formerly also a sage, has dis- 
carded this last bond. His struggle for recognition, which 
was originally meant to satisfy his person, has finally burst its 
shell. Now he lives no longer in himself, now he offers to 
divine light a perfectly transparent medium. Because this 
light shines through him without any hindrance, he only 
wishes to give, he only shines and radiates, he knows no atti- 
tude to creation but that of a dispenser of grace, just as the 
sun cannot leave one single atom without its warmth. 

The Bodhisatva says yes to the most evil world, for he knows 
himself to be one with it. Rid of himself, he feels his founda- 
tion in God, while his surface is intertwined with everything 
which exists. Thus he must love all beings as he loves him- 
self, thus he cannot rest until every one mirrors divinity in 
everything. The Bodhisatva, not the sage, embodies the aim of 
human aspiration. 


INDEX 


Abnormality, rejection by Chinese wis- 
dom, 11. 116 
conditions of, 1, 143 
Absolute, the, meaning of, 1. 134 
European and Indian view of, 1. 260 
denied by Buddhism and naturalism, 
1. 40 
removal of the difference between 
the relative and, 1. 199 
values of, 1. 130, 305 
Actors, 1. 15, 324; 1. 159 
Acvagosha, I. 266; 11. 155, 224 
Advantages, are more positive than 
failings, 11. 203 
there are no unpaid for advantages: 
vide Compensation 
“Esthetic judgment, objective validity, 


I, 24 
Affliction, productive effects of, 1. 133; 
II. 328 
Age, of various souls, 1. 303 
every soul has a specific ideal, 
i223 


why it produces what is most sig- 
nificant, 1. 272 
Agriculture, Chinese, 11. 70 
European, 11. 306 
American, 11. 325 
moral basis of Chinese, 11. 324 
Akbar, Emperor, 1. 201 
Albatross, 11. 242 
Allah, as the soul of the Sahara, 1. 20 
nature of, 1, 203 
no relation to art, I. 199 
Altruism, not more valuable than ego- 
ism, I. 272, 285 
Ambition, condemned by expedience, 


1, 298 
America, primordial nature of, 11. 283, 
288 
advantages over Europe, Il. 318 et 
seq. 


immense abyss between inner perfec- 
tion and external progress, 11. 345 


America, Cont. 
formative powers of, 11. 279, 289 
Americanisation leads back to an animal 
condition, 11. 333 
Americanism, the secret of its power of 
attraction, 11. 333 
Americans, the, as typifying the West- 
erner, II. 268 
as barbarians, 11. 263, 267 
as Yogis, 11. 332 
the methods of work of the greatest, 
1.277 
self-overestimation of, 11. 121 
optimism, II. 268, 329 
their type of workmen superior to 
the European, 11. 319 
the small better than the great, 11. 
319 
resemblance to schoolboys, 11. 285 
their formula of life impoverishes 
their soul, 11. 332 
Ancestor worship, 11. 71, 205 
Animals, lacking in free imagination, 
I. 67, 74 
capacities of, 11. 243 
perfection of, 1. 70, 74 
Anti-Semitism, 1. 147 
Ape, grotesque nature of, 11. 27 
Appearance, always material, 1. 120 
as such not transferable, I. 276 
all—can give perfect expression to 
significance, II. 163 
Appreciation, power of, favours higher 
development, It. 269 
Arabesques, meaningless metaphysically, 
¥, 219 
Arabs, their’ world-philosophies, 1. 205 
Architecture, as a fettered art, 1. 215 
logic of, 1. 279 
Greek, 1. 79 
Japanese, 11. 181 
Aristocracy, of the future, 11. 269, 270, 
Al 
absolute mental advantages of, 1. 55 


373 


374 INDEX 


Aristocracy, Cont. 
signs of degeneration, If. 175 
as the result of breeding, 1. 189 
Art, only the highest—has the signifi- 
cance which zsthetes give to all, 
I. 245 11. 138 
influence of nature upon the develop- 
ment of, 11. 143 
secret of spiritual, 1. 281 
of the West is born of reason, I. 
279 ATO LS. 
comparisons between eastern and 
western, I. 279 
purely decorative—has no signifi- 
cance, I. 219 
less interestirig than nature, 1. 23 
Indian—as the imagination of the 
flesh, 1. 99 
far-eastern—as the continuation of 
the stubbornness of nature, I1. 143 
Chinese, 1. 281; 11. 68, 173 
Japanese, 11. 164, 209 
monuments, significance for history, 
1. 211 
how critical history of—is possible, 
Tocca t 
to what extent styles of—can be 
judged objectively, 1. 24 
Artists, as women, I. 172 
psychically not unified, 1. 103 
only rarely of mature human value, 
1. 301 
of the East as Yogis, 1. 281 
Ascent, on the ladder of being must be 
paid for, 1. 149 
Ascetics, many varieties of, 1. 126 
and comfort, 11. 339 
not chastisement, I. 144 
Asiatics, possess the most ample back- 
ground, II. 68 
psychically poor compared to us, I. 
ASNT atts 
psychological intuition of, 11. 83 
less brutally sensuous than we, II. 196 
Aspiration, ennobling, 1. 152 
Astral worlds, 1. 138, 336 
Asylums, lunatic, 1. 84 
Atmosphere, psychic, I. 222, 307; 11. 44 
of the expectation of the Messiah, 
I, 152 


Attachment, of the masses better than 
detachment, 1. 62; 11. 318 
Attitude, intellectual, 1. 268 
on the same mental level as ideas, 
1755/63 Mee L3G 
Augustine, Saint, as father of Chris- 
tendom, I. 309 
love and, 11. 97 
Austrian aristocrats, as the most perfect 
German type, I. 70 
Autocracy, advantages of, 11. 215 
to what extent always democratic in 
spirit, 1. 204 
Autonomy, power of the idea, 1. 167 
hardly ever exploited, 1. 169 
Confucian form of appearance, 11. 
91 
training for, 11. 304 et seq. 
complete in the subject, 1. 354 


Backwoodsmen, nature of, 11. 146 
Baker Eddy, Mrs., 1. 157 
Beauty, in nature and as an ideal, 11. 
292 
metaphysical meaning of, 1. 24, 71, 
b345u85 Os IT h9 
as the perfect expression of ra- 
cial tendencies of form, I. 24, 
135 
meaning of its vitalising effects, 1. 
156 
nowhere important individually, 1. 
24 
what appears to primitive man as, 
I. 96 
Beginning, the primeval, is inexplica- 
ble, 11. 249 
Being, more important than perform- 
ance, I, 136, 247 
and action, original independence of, 
nas ae7 
mutual effects of, 1. 57 
and faith, 1. 153 
Bergson, 1. 47, 147, 264; 11. 224 
Bhagavad-Gita, I. 256, 296 
Bible, every book can be one, 11. 328 
Birth, absolute advantages of noble, 1. 
55, 220 
Blame, bloodstained statesman is yet 
without, I. 286 


a 


INDEX 


Blame, Cont. 
everyone is destined to a certain 
amount of, 11. 239 
empirical and metaphysical, 11. 301 
Blindness, advantages of, 1. 142, 336 
of the Indians compared to nature, 
1 Cen 
of fighters, 11, 331 
Boddhisattva, the oath of the, 1. 169, 
372 
as the goal of human aspiration, 11. 
372 
Body, the richer the—, the better does 
it express the spirit, 11. 173 
imagination of the, I, 21, 66, 99, 
323 
and mind, vide Mind 
the Westerner must renew his, 11. 288 
gospel of the, 11, 288 
Boredom, impossible during blindness, 
I, 336 
the hermit knows—no more than the 
man of the world, 11. 366 
Boundaries, of an individual do not ex- 
haust his being, 1. 18; 11. 364 
inviolable as such, 1. 77; 11. 189 
why external—are not inwardly lim- 
ited, 1. 135, 332; 11. 367 
Brahma, as a playful being, 1. 333 
conceptions relative, 1. 259 
Brahmanism, as the real form of ex- 
pression of the Indian spirit, 1. 174 
Brains, one must differentiate between 
oneself and the related, 1. 30 
Breathing exercises, 1. 226, 276 
Brothels, purity of the atmosphere in 
Japanese, 11. 193 et seq. 
Buddha, ruler’s nature of, 1. 54 
psychological genius of, 1. 54 
how far greater than Christ, 1. 56, 
65, 308 
greater than all the Rishis, 1. 312 
highest example of, 1. 332 
not a Yogi, I. 310 
not a thinker, 1. 56, 311 
not inimical to God, 1. 57 
observed only in process of evolu- 
tion, I. 47 
and Luther, 1. 60 
and Ernst Mach, 1. 47 


- 


375 


Buddha, Cont. 
gained revelations through struggles, 
II. 304 
Buddhism (southern Hinayana), psy- 
chological foundation of, 1. 39 
considered as empirical relativism, 1. 
47 
unsuitable to the Westerner, 1. 53 
as the theory of vegetation, 1. 46 
the gospel of the Tropics, 1. 48, 54, 
57 
ideal religion of mediocrity, 1. 63 
why it does not create egoists, 1. 51 
Buddhism, formative power of, 1. 54; 
II, 13 
has precluded all resentment, 1. 56, 
59 
inculcates profoundest wisdom in the 
small man, 1. 53, 63 
to what extent superior to Christian- 
ity, 1. 55, 62, 64 
why not dogmatic, 1. 57 
not pessimistic, 1. 59 
Lutheran traits, 1. 61 
why despised by Brahmins, 1. 48, 175 
not the best in Buddha, 1. 311 
signs of degeneration, I. 175, 300 
considered as the Indian twilight of 
the gods, 1. 306 
evolution of (Mahayana), 1. 47, 
147, 177, 196; 11. 150, 151, 170 
(Japanese) history of, 1. 171 
western nature of, II. 156 
and Christianity, 1. 177; 1. 
225 
spirituality of, 11. 170 
Buddhistic consciousness, I. 46 
divine worship, 1. 51, 56; 11. 156 
monasticism, 1. 59; I. 150, 156, 
Ut 
priests, 1. 51; 11. 156 
Burmese, 11, 14 
Business-man, idealism of the, 11. 28, 
45 
nobleman as ignoble, 11. 177 


170, 


Calvin, found a bridge between tradi- 
tional concepts and the modern 
spirit, 11. 344 

and Mahomet, 1. 207 


376 


Calvinism as the religion of worship 
of worldly efficacy, 11. 344 
and Lutheranism, 11. 90, 343 
monstrous dogmatism of, 11, 
312 
relationship to Islam, 1. 207 
Capitalism, religious foundation of, 1. 
340 
Caste, 1. 114, 187, 191 
Catholic, and Protestant spirit, differ- 
ence between, I. 231, 288; 11. 60, 
90 
nature of Hinduism, I. 230, 288 
Catholicism, nature of, 1. 230, 288 
exclusiveness of, 11. 102 
as form of consciousness, 11. 103 
profounder than original Christian- 
ity, 1% 154 
its spiritual development more fa- 
vourable than Protestantism, 1. 
232 
favourable to psychic culture, 11. 90 
as a system of spiritual hygiene, 1. 
231 
propitious to art, I. 103 
Ceremonies, significance of, 1. 90 
Chinese conception of, 11. 65 
Change, value of ability to, 11. 10, 93, 
230 
Character, nature of, 11. 130 
no external synthesis of, 1. 208 
no spiritual ideal but sound natural 
basis, 11. 130 
is resolved by recognition, 1. 300 
belief in fate creates, 1. 252 
developed through Protestantism, 11. 
89 
Charity, meaning of, 1. 247 
greater in the East than in the West, 
I, 249 
Charlatanism, as mask of the sage, 11. 
43 
Charm, as the crown of wisdon, 11. 60, 
116, 157 
Chastisement, Yogis inimical to, 1. 144 
Chastity, ideal of, meaning of reli- 
gious, I. 236; 11. 42 
as the exponent of brutal sensuous- 
ness, II. 197 
European and Japanese, 11, 204 


91, 


INDEX 


China, western greatness of, 11. 67 
is the first and only country to real- 
ise the social ideal, 11. 55, 86, 135 
and Russia, 11. 69 
Chinamen, vitality of, 11. 451 
profundity of, 11. 68 
social culture of, 11. 27 
extremely practical, 11. 108 
extreme expressive beings, 11. 110 
no thinkers, 11. 54, 108, 110 
intellectuals, 11. 106, 134 
legality of, 11. 85 
self-control of, 11. 39 
relation to Europeans, 11. 106 
superficiality of, 11. 63 
lack of nobility of, 11. 85 
Philistinism of, 11. 41, 105 
weakness of the subjective, 11. 109 
moral culture of, 11. 44 
spirit of, 11. 96 
humour of, 11. 49 
love for order, 11. 85 
tolerance of, 11. 84, 113 
caution of, 11. 43 
faculty for combination of, 1. 31, 
05 
equanimity of, 11. 39 
attacks of fury of, 11. 40 
most human of men, I, 138 
most cultured of men, 11. 136 
most substantial Asiatics, 11. 173 
Chinese, culture, exclusiveness of, 11. 
102 
can be measured only by means of 
the geological gauge of time, 11. 
29 
the most easily intelligible of all, 
1.139 
as a model, 11. 61, 71, 86 
substantiality of, 11. 68 
ideal of art, 1. 281; 11. 68, 173 
mysticism of, 11. 41 
religiosity of, 11. 37 
writing, I1. 30 et seg., 49 
wisdom, peculiarity of, 11. 33, 46 
stresses the passive, 11. 47 
knows nothing above nature, II. 46 
world philosophy, 11. 46, 47, 54, 58, 
69, 71, 73, 113 
feeling for the world, 11. 70, 210 


INDEX 


Christ, his existence no religious prob- 
lem, 1. 152, 241 
latest posthumous developments, 1. 
1545 11, 89 
as element of Christianity, 1. 147 
self-glorification, 1, 221 
not father of Christianity, 1. 309 
to what extent a highest example, 
Ts.0:3 
true meaning of his doctrines is be- 
ing understood better and better, 
TOG sulle loo 
Christian, all Occidentals are physio- 
logically, 1. 165 
a special quality of love makes men, 
II, 152 
Christian Science, 11. 328, 343 
Christianity, would never have become 
a world religion without Paul and 
St. Augustine, I. 309 
advantages over Buddhism, 1. 
It. 166,.172)-225, 229 
has never inwardly taken hold of 
the masses, I. 54 
will never die out in the West, 11. 
163 
its ideals are designed for a chosen 
minority, 11, 115 
undignified attitude of a certain sec- 
tion of, causes dissension, I. 56 
metamorphoses of, 1, 153, 177; I. 
89, 151, 154, 343 
become more and more worldly from 
reform to reform, II. 343 
American, 11. 340 
philosophically not on the highest 
level, 11. 274 
peculiar formative power of, 11. 274 
the religion of freedom par excel- 
lence, 11. 275 
present manifestation not final, 1. 
231 
future possibilities of, 11. 316 et seq. 
Church, always expresses a religion 
better than religious texts, 1. 51 
Catholic and Indian conception of 
the, 11. 156 
the Buddhistic, 11. 169, 225 
is a cultural office for the China- 
man, II. 38 


623 


377 


Circumstances, exceptional, never give 
pure expression to any one being, 
II. 25 
Civilisation, modern, its fundamental 
weaknesses, 11, 233 
absolute advantages of, 11. 264 ef 
séq., 318 et seq. 
Clairvoyance, education to achieve, 1. 
124 
worthless if acquired by disease, 1. 
143 
Classical education, value of, 11. 104 et 
seq. 
Classicism, Chinese, 11. 101 
Climate, adaptability to, a problem of 
the imagination, 1. 21, 66 
Clothes, metaphysical significance of, 
I. 27 
Comedies, of Shakespeare, 1. 334 
Comfort, disadvantages of, 1. 193 
Community, consciousness of, its lack 
as America’s fortune, 11. 322 
Compensation in nature, I. 149, 301, 
320; 11. 10, 20 
Compromise, only superficial—possible, 
Ir, 128 
Concentration as basis of all perfec- 
tion, I, 125, 270, 277 
as motive power of the spirit, 1. 266 
a substitute for talent, 1. 267 
liberates the higher forces of the 
soul, I. 272 
as fundamental basis of Chinese wis- 
dom, 11. 104 
of reason as the basis of western art, 
Te2sg 
Concepts of faith, irrelevance of their 
truth, 1. 71, 229, 241, 255, 288 
et seq. 
as means to the end, I. 229, 241, 289 
why everything depends upon them, 
1. 314 
traditional—better than new, I. 
et Ség., 229 
all—of human origin, 1. 242 
should never be changed, 1. 229 
primitive—suit most people best, 1. 
229 et seq. 
Mohammedan—the most material- 
istic, 1. 213 


164 


378 


Concepts of faith, Cont. 
monstrosity of Calvinistic, 11. 91, 


312 
Concepts, can be seen directly, 1. 121, 
267-8, 321 
possible significance in double direc- 
tion, I. 90 


importance in the Christian faith of, 
Feov evita ow 
Condition, no—good in itself, 1. 283 
no—is the absolutely highest, 1. 304, 
310 
no—passes away altogether, 1. 185 
no—sums up the others, 1. 304 
every—is positive in effect, 11. 203, 
213 
some—is most appropriate to every- 
one, II. 213 
historical—as a special expression of 
the forms of nature in relation to 
human life, 1. 106 
Confucianism, nature of, 11. 32, 51 
life no theory, 11. 52, 108, 124 
the philosophy of the normal, 1. 
116 ef seq. 
the philosophy of the future, 11. 88, 
118, 130, 135 
makes reactionary, 11. 55, 87 
as peasant wisdom, II, 125, 147 
Lutheran traits of, 11. 89, 113 
fundamental errors of its cosmology, 
IDS. 007, 
creates higher level of average men, 
ey bf 
and Christianity, 11. 112 
and Japanese culture of considera- 
tion, II. 147 
Conquest, spirit of, metaphysical mean- 
ing of, 11. 282 
Consciousness, higher form of, in the 
shape of the goal of progress, 1. 
263 
of men developed progressively to- 
wards intellectualism, 1. 234 
various strata of, 1. 90, 122, 240, 
265 
road to higher, 1. 267 
normal not the richest, 1. 140 
level of—of the Hindus, 1. 92, 224 
lever of—of the Rishis, 1. 293 


INDEX 


Consideration, disadvantages of, 1. 286 
derogatory to uprightness, 11. 64 
Japanese culture of, 11. 147, 184 

Continence, sexual, why recommended 

by all religions, 1. 236 

Contradictions, Indian relation to, 1. 

258 
in the world, how they are qualified, 
I. 102 

Convalescence, If. 9 

Convention, as nature, 11. 66, 175 

Conversion, uselessness of, 1. 58 
as a constructive help, 11. 349 
zeal for, as proof of meanness of 

spirit, 1. 51; 11, 272 

Courage, animal, 11. 122 
moral, 11. 85 
productive only upon a moral basis, 

Lis 0 
leads most rapidly to the ideal aim, 
Il. 306 

Courtesan, mission of, 11. 194, 201 
and Grande Dame, 1. 180 

Courtesans, as educationalists, 1. 180 
as priestesses, 11, 192 
in the Indian temples, 1. 

199 
Courtesy, as the fundamental expres- 
sion of decency, II. 59 
Chinese, 11. 57, 184 
Japanese, 11. 184 
Creation, of the world, Indian mythol- 
ogy of the, 1. 333 
speculation concerning the, 11. 250, 
251 
Creeds, religiously of equal worth, 
Wei Z35erleel ls 
Crime, as a road to God, 1. 283; 1. 
306 
Criticism, all—brings its blessing ulti- 
mately, 11. 308 

Cruelty, meaning of, 11. 34 
psychological basis of, 11. 36 

Cult, as magic, 11. 38, 114 

Culture, external and internal, 11. 60 
erotic, 1. 179 
moral, 11. 52, 82, 130 
belongs to a different dimension 

from progress, 1. 273; 11, 135, 
265 et seg., 346 


A he 


INDEX 


Culture, Cont. 
attainable only through profundity, 
not through expansion, I. 273 
of the senses, 11, 197 
new—only flourishes upon new soil, 
II, 289 
Curtis, Adela, 1. 164 
Customs, adhesion to, as form of up- 
rightness, 11. 66 


Dancing, Indian, 1. 112 
Japanese, 11. 189 
Hawaiian, 11. 256 
Death, noblest attitude towards, 11, 317 
cause of the frequent serenity of 
man in the throes of, 1. 142 
meaning of, 1. 131 
possible victory over, 1. 240 
attitude of the Mohammedan to- 
wards, I. 206 
attitude of the Indian towards, 11. 


317 

attitude of the Chinese towards, 11. 
34 

attitude of the Christian towards, 
rhe SU) 


Decency, Japanese view of, 11. 204 
Demands for obedience, significance of 
religious, I. 205, 288 
Democracy, as an ideal implies eleva- 
tion of the masses, 11. 269 
its ideals realised by aristocrats, 11. 
218 
advantages of, Il. 267 e¢ seg., 319 et 
seq. 
Mohammedan, 1, 203 
hypothesis of work, 11. 267 
as a preventive of freedom, results 
in lowering the general level, 11. 
wh 
the rule of incompetents, 11. 79, 354 
will be overcome, II, 359 
its ideals will eventually be capable 
of realisation, 11. 268 
Demons, primitive instinct as, I. 95 
Desert, atmosphere of the, 1. 20 
the gods of the, 1. 21 
Desire, as a religious factor, 1. 94 
Destruction, correlated to creation, 11. 
300 


379 


Destruction, Cont. 
as the path of renovation, 11. 26, 300 
Detachment, as an ideal condition, 1. 
334 
its ideal befits only the sage, 1. 62 
Indian doctrine of, 1. 296 
Destiny of men, 11. 48 
to grow beyond themselves, 1. 282 
to found the kingdom of the spirit 
on earth, 11. 284 
Deterrents, penal theory of, 11. 59 
Development, always one-sided, 11. 20 
possible short-cuts to, 11. 269 
cannot be mentally anticipated, 1. 
367 
of life comparable to the perform- 
ance of a symphony, 1. 251, 352 
theory of and content of truth of 
Indian, 1, 324; 11. 269 
error of Spencer’s theory of, 11. 271 
Devotion, not suited to the European 
temperament, I. 227 
Diet and mentality, 11. 93 
Discipline, necessity of religious, 1.229 
Mohammedan faith as military, 1. 
204 
Disease, as a positive condition, 1.141 
advantages of, 11. 9 
Dissolution, why an ideal to Buddhism, 
I. 44 
Doctrine, true, as the ideal of the fu- 
ture, 1%. 155 
contradictory—considered as equally 
orthodox in India, 1. 108 
Dogmata, to what extent necessary, I. 
294 
why everything depends upon—in 
Christianity, 1. 57, 244 
not necessarily limiting, 11. 103 
as means of expression, II. 169 
similarity of Christian and Japanese 
Buddhistic, 11. 225 
belong to the past, 11. 326, 348 
Doubt, the evil of, 1. 288 
Dragons, significance of, in China, 1. 
73 
Dualism, critically unchallengeable, 1, 
256 
root of morals, 1. 130 
Dubois, Paul, 1, 328; 1. 130 


380 INDEX 


Duelling, advantages of, 11. 123 
Duration, value does not guarantee, II. 
352 
favoured by reactionary outlook, 11. 
56 
Duty, as justification, 1. 286 
as an objective form of volition, 11. 
355 


East, the, method of life in, 11. 279 
fundamental differences between the 
West and, 1. 260 
secret of the spirituality of its art, 
I. 281 
power of faith of, 1. 191 
durability of, 1. 57, 137 
Eccentricity, natural basis of inven- 
tive originality, 11. 270 
Education, juvenile, Indian, 1. 226 et 
seq. 
Japanese, 11. 147 
religious—in India, I. 226 
by women, I. 180 
to freedom, 11. 355 
in the form of suggestion, 1. 127 
Efficacy, of an idea, what it depends 
on, II, 312-3 
as the test as to whether Christians 
are the chosen, I. 63 
of the Westerner, I. 169 
Ego, as an external world, I. 22, 316; 
II, 238, 258 
as an instrument, II. 132, 188 
God as, 11. 329 
absolute autonomy of, 11. 354 
as the source of infinite power, I. 
314 
Egoism, meaning of its harmfulness, 
I, 3173 11. 18 ef seg. 
its vanquishment simultaneously kills 
altruism, I. 286 
leads most rapidly in a world of 
struggle to the ideal goal, 1 
306 
as a means to the disembodiment of 
the ego, 11. 306 
as necessary basis of individualistic 
culture, 11. 322 
the ideal of immaculacy as the 
apotheosis of, 11. 204 


Electoral system, the grotesque elements 
in the democratic, 11. 353 
Emotionalism, favourable to religious 
realisation, I. 327 
Englishmen, the most perfect Euro- 
peans, I. 703; Il. 62 
possessed of the most concentrated 
imagination, I. 67 
legal consciousness of, 11. 302 
only rarely capable of supreme men- 
tal effort, 11. 10 
feeling for ceremony of, 11. 191 
relationship to the Chinese of, 11. 62 
as Yogis, I. 277 
wealth of prejudice of, 11. 119 
religious primitiveness of, 11. 312 
Eroticism, as keystone of the soul, 1. 
180, 183 
hypertrophy of, 11. 197 
Error, as an expression of truth, 1. 255 
as a road to truth, 11. 306 
Esprit, possible profundity of, 1. 34 
Ethics, quintessence of all, 1. 331 
Etiquette, as a means of facilitating 
intercourse, II. 57 
as condition of freedom, 11. 179 
brothels as a school for, 11. 203 
Europe, end of its historical career, II. 
286 
Evil, its part in the activity of the 
world, 1. 283 
all—means good to someone, 11. 328 
can only be overcome by a change 
of the level of consciousness, 1. 
283, 314, 334 
the duty of resisting, 11. 305 
the curse of giving way to, II. 
298 
overcoming—by good, 1. 
196 
what is radically, 1. 130 
possibilities of, 1. 130 
objective reality of, 1. 130 
part played in the economy of the 
world, 1. 300 
occasionally divinely ordained, 11. 
301 
incompatibility with good presents no 
problem, 1. 102 
beyond good and, 1. 285, 327 


2835 11. 


INDEX 


Exactitude, the Indian lack of, 1. 290 
Europeans fanatics for, 11. 309 
Exaggeration, meaning of Indian, 1. 
100, 313 
Example, significance of, 1. 319 
extreme, which one man can be to 
another, I. 157, 245, 309 
each one inimitable in itself, 11. 62 
Exoterism and esoterism, Indian view 
of, 1. 255 
Expectation of the Messiah, 1. 152 
Experience, extreme—of the Buddhist, 
T2350 
of most men dependent upon ex- 
ternal stimulus, I. 221 
the only way to transmutation, 1. 
314 
revelation, nature of, 1. 224 
the extreme, II. 367 
how Buddha and Christ gained their, 


11, 304 
Experiences, absolutely necessary as 
food, 1. 76 


as creative forces, 11. 367 
various forms of, I. 13 
Expression, insufficiency of Indian, 1. 

Boye, 

Chinese—alone immortal for meta- 
physical realities, 11. 33, 42 

most pregnant form, for the spiritual 
always found by materialists, 11. 
167 

power of, implies an absolute advan- 
tage, I. 140 

German inability for, 11. 167 

of Indian sages, 1. 293 

Europeans and Chinese as men of, 
Ir. 107 

Chinese culture as culture of, 11. 220 

suggestive manner of, of Chinese, 
1133 

External circumstances, indifference of, 

11. 45, 56 


Facts, unimportance of, 1. 30 
Indians recognise no, 285 
Faith in authority, advantages of, 1. 
291, 318 
of the Indians, 1. 288, 291 
of the Theosophists, 1. 167 


381 


Faith, a priori, must be incapable of 

disappointment, I, 154 

why founders of religion stipulate it 
from the beginning, 1. 148 

meaning of religious, I. 162, 225, 
239, 288 

and knowledge independent of each 
other, I. 226, 240, 241, 290 

as a means to knowledge, 1. 240 

advantage of blind, 1. 327 

weak in our world, 1. 154 

why it is diminishing, 1. 241 

sole means of reviving, I. 243; II. 


355 

salvation by, 1. 141, 242; m1. 151, 
156 

its formative power in the East, 1. 
LOT 

and being, amalgamated in the 
highest type of man, I. 170 ef 
seq. 

Islamic—as military discipline, 1. 
204 

men of, why opposed to originality, 
1293 

influencing another’s—by force a 
sin, I. 226 


lack of proof religiously advan- 
tageous, I. 162 
Fakirs, retrogression towards animal 
condition, I. 254 
not eccentric, 11. 270 
Falsification of history, as the path of 
all religious evolution, 11. 88 
Fashion, 1. 28 
Fatalism, comparison between Moham- 
medan and Russian, I. 206 
Fate, Greek idea of, 11. 352 
to what extent it exists, 11. 328 
what conditions, 1. 325 
as a convention, II. 175 
Faust, of Goethe, 1. 271 
Femininity and masculinity, Japanese, 
1. 201 
modern, II. 201 
of Indian ideals, 1. 166 
of the ideals of theosophy, 1. 
170 
Fertility, its spirit embodied in the In- 
dian images of God, I. 97 et seq. 


168, 


382 


Form, the same form never embodies 
the profoundest significance twice 
for the same people, 11. 231 

different views of—in the East and 
the West, 1. 29 

creates content, II. 58 ez séq. 

every—contains the possibilities of 
the whole of its development, 1. 
2103 I. 219 

in America in advance of content, 
Ii. 325, 359 

predominates usually only where its 
meaning has vanished, 11. 29 

must be inclusive not exclusive, II. 


49 
the—of’ divinity is conditioned by 
man, I, 235 


typical—most favourable to individ- 
ual expression, 11. 58 

China’s supremacy in, II. 49 

has become fluid in the West, 11. 261 

overestimation of, I1. 66 

English sense for, 11. 191 

Chinese sense for, 11. 29 

Japanese sense for, 11, 159 

Franciscan order, 11. 172 
Freedom, nature of, 11. 18 

absolute—of every individual, 11. 
354 

inner—has its external correlative in 
the feeling for membership in the 
community, 11. 370 

development towards, 11. 355 

attainment through recognition of 
one’s salvation, through asceticism 
and comfort, II. 338 

as obedience to God, 11. 19 

and free will, 11. 255, 354 

Christianity as the noblest bearer of 
the spirit of, 11. 275 

our idea of—unknown to the Chi- 
nese, II. 46 

inner, I. 17 et seq. 

of the Indian, 1. 245 

of Chinamen, II. 51, 99 

highest conceivable, 11. 359 

American—as arbitrary government, 
II, 354 

misunderstood everywhere by democ- 
racy, II. 355 


INDEX 


Freedom, Cont. 
social—of the future, 11. 136, 357 
in the physical sphere—recedes ever 
further in the course of biological 
progress, I, 323 
is realised in limitation, 1. 74, 324 
is not impeded by obedience to outer 
forms, 11. 57 
French, noble—women as the best liv- 
ing type of womanhood, 11. 193 
courtesy of—grand seigneurs com- 
pared to that of cultured China- 
men, If. 57 
language, 11. 31 
eroticism as metaphysics, 11. 12 
revolution, II. 26 
social supremacy, I. 60 
and Chinese culture, 11. 66 
Futurism, 11. 245 


Gambler, psychology of the, 11. 50 
Gardening, Japanese art of, 11. 144, 
182 
Generalisation, impulse to, as a sign of 
primitiveness, 11, 125, 159, 350 
Genesis, probability of its story, 11. 249, 
252 
Genius, nature of, I, 268 
overestimation in the West, 1. 292 
and talent, antagonistic relationship, 
I. 330 
Gentlemen, as the highest type of no- 
bility, 11. 176 
Gentleness, as an ideal is only bene- 
ficial to men of violence, 1. 298 
does not possess a favourable natural 
basis, 11. 302 
Geology, as an educative force, 11. 250 
Germanic race, relation to Indian and 
Semitic, I. 214 
lack of erotic culture of, 1. 180 
why it will become the foremost 
bearer of culture, 11. 302 
God, his limitations, 1. 150, 320; 11. 
210, 243 
in nature, I. 322 
reveals himself within the limits of 
our prejudices, 1. 235 
the road to, I. 237, 241, 299; 1. 
306 


INDEX 


God, Cont, 
as “I” and “Thou,” 11. 329 
has abdicated in favour of auton- 
omous man, I. 169 
possibility of beholding, 1. 123 
consciousness of, I. 273 
Mohammedan trust in, 1. 206 
Gods, do not concern religious men, 1. 
163 
Greek, 1. 21; 11. 254 
Indian, creation of, 1. 39 
significance of, I. 98, 226; 11. 38 
less than men, IJ. 255 
Indian—as the most perfect embodi- 
ments of primeval forces, 1. 95 
Buddhistic conception of, 1. 56, 71 
existence of—conceivable only as a 
game, I. 334 
Goethe, 1. 110, 270; 11, 58, 119 
Golden Age, 11. 13 
Goodness, no general denominator of 
ideal aspiration, 1. 182 
man should only think good of him- 
self, 1. 252 
profound men can only desire, 1, 274 
Government, form of, Chinese, is the 
highest in idea, 11. 76 
Grace, of God, Americans regard ma- 
terial success as indicative of, II. 
340 
Grande Dame, as universalised cour- 
tesan, I. 180 
the Holy Virgin as, 1. 167 
Greatness, on what the value of great 
men depends, I. 156, 248 
accidental nature of historical, 1. 147 
essentially independent of success, 11. 
69 
significance of quantity, 11. 210 
mental and human—rarely coincide, 
1. 147 
Greek, church, 11. 261 
architecture, 1. 79 
art, 1. 278 
gods, 11. 257 
imagination, II, 254 
form, 11. 49 
Greeks, lack of inner superiority, 1. 206 
why inferior to fate, 11. 329 
knew nothing of progress, 11. 330 


383 


Growth, rapidity of tropical, 1. 39, 45 
disadvantages of too rapid, 11. 268 


Habits, always evil, 1. 194 
Happiness, what it depends on, 1. 248; 
116365127, 183 
not an end but a best means, 11. 345 
Hazard, game of, 11. 50 
Heaven, 1. 35, 50 
its foundation upon earth the mis- 
sion of the West, 11. 274, 293, 353 
Hegel, 11. 298 
Heroes, of ancient tragedies as a bar- 
baric ideal, 1. 198 
Chinese contempt for, 11, 122 
Highest, there is nothing absolutely, 1. 
302, 324 
to what extent within the reach of 
everyone, I. 332 
Hinduism, Catholic nature of, 1. 230, 
287 
as a vegetative process, 1. 39, 100, 
338 
animalic, 1. 99, 107 
History, peculiarity of, 1. 197 
registers only a part of all activity, 
1 ARGS 
significance in the historical sense 
does not embrace all values, 11. 
299 
leadership in—will not always re- 
main in Europe, 11, 289 
and accident, 11, 299 
Indians lack the sense for, 1. 
184 
and Mahayana, 11. 224 
Humanity, as an orchestra, 1. 3043 I 
185 
unity of, 11, 369 
future solidarity of, 1. 351 
Humour, nature of, 11. 33 
Chinese, 11, 49 


110, 


Ideal, the highest—inconceivable in 
concrete form, 1. 182 
the extreme—of human life, vide 
Perfection 
of the norm, 1, 116-120 
the democratic—raises the masses, 11. 
269 


384 


Ideal, Cont. 
mistakes of the modern western, I. 
322 
the new, I. 329 
of uniformity, advantages of, 11. 267 
specifically western, 11. 290 
erroneousness of, 11. 268 
highest conceivable realisation, I. 
290 
Idealism, none ever in vain, 1. 305 
of the Moslems, 1. 213 
of the Chinese, 11. 124 
requires the stimulus of material dan- 
ger, 11. 123 
less fruitful than materialism, 11. 284 
greater in the West than in the East, 
Il. 261 
of the business-man, II, 28 
every level has its special, 1. 52, 60; 
Il. 367 
Ideals, of fraternity, only realised in 
Islam, 1. 203 ef seq. 
live at the expense of one another, 
I, 182 
masculine and feminine, I. 166, 170 
which are too lofty are corrupting, 
TSO 7s TORS 
which are too cheap are harmful, 
I. 61 
of theosophy are historically at an 
end, I. 166 
as real forces, 11. 119, 265, 330 
advantages of unobtainable, 1. 
155 
every level of existence must confess 
special, 1. 52, 62; II. 367 
no ready-made—are at the basis of 
the world, 11. 55, 72 
as basic tones, 1. 305 
of our time, I. 198; 11. 333 
Ideas, as independent forces, 1. 241 
are material as manifestations, I. 267 
Indian—not nearly so potent as 
European, I. 297 


practical efficacy independent of 
mental value, I. 146; 11. 273, 
312 


possibility of getting behind, 1. 269 
Plato’s, 1. 269 
as creative forces, 11. 315 


INDEX 


Illusion, eastern attitude towards, 1. 29 
the world as, 1. 40 
Illusions, western and Indian, I. 41 
Imagination, more substantial than fact 
to the Indians, 1. 110 
why it is not equivalent to fact, II. 
309 
of the body, I. 21, 66, 323; 11. 245 
of the flesh, Indian art as the, 1. 99 
et seq. 
of the heart, 11. 36 
and technique, relations between, II. 
187 
vegetates in the Tropics, 1. 39, 46 
Immortal, the—quality of man as the 
fruit of his earthly ego, I. 32; I. 
353 
Immortality, 1. 32, 49, 135, 137, 139; 
II, 19, 240, 317 
Imperialism, Chinese, 11. 74, 121 
English, 11. 191 
Japanese, 11. 214 
Russian, 11. 215 
Impossible, value of striving after the, 
II, 118, 353 
Impoverishment, progressive—of lan- 
guages, II. 33 
of the world thanks to us, 11, 297 
et seq. 
of the soul, thanks to Puritanism, 1. 
182, 305 
thanks to Americanisation, 11. 332 
Impulse, as divine means of expression, 
1, 98 
Incompetence, democracy’s rule of, 1. 
79, 354 
Indian, state of consciousness, I, 16, 92, 
110, 212, 300 
culture, I. 264-8 
spirit, not exhausted in any system, 
1. 106,256 
feeling for heroism, 1. 184 
arty 98-9173 eZ eu 
amorous life, 1. 179, 236 
humanity, more manifold than Euro- 
pean, I. 91, 187 
personality, 1. 337 
philosophy, fundamental nature of, 
L262 
no product of thought, 1. 259, 290 


INDEX 


Indian Philosophy, Cont. 
not completely confined in any sys- 
tem, I. 262 
dancing, 1. 112 
wisdom, fundamental nature of, 1. 
257, 338 
peculiarity, 1. 285 
cause of—profundity, 1. 264 
why unproductive, 1. 293, 297 
permits active interpretation, 1. 
300 
philosophy, pragmatic, 1. 263 
exclusiveness, I. 284 
key to its problem, 1. 95 
Indians, as human beings, not so ad- 
vanced as men of recognition, 1. 
287, 301; 11. 45, 51 
antagonistic to originality, 1. 291 
lacking in character, 1. 253 
inner freedom of, I. 245 
power of faith of, 1. 191 
untruthfulness of, 11. 309 
ignore the laws of nature, 1. 287 
Indigenous, no art was ever quite, II, 
165 
Individual, the, as organ of the ego, 
I. 18, 331 
and the race possess a Polar rela- 
tionship, 1. 24; 11. 99 
insignificance of, 1. 62, 71 
has never been taken seriously in the 
East, 11. 36 
advantages of his value, 11. 305, 315, 
319 
Individualisation, possibilities of, 1. 
270 
implies increased potentiality, 11. 284 
of American flora compared to the 
tropical flora, 11. 283 
lack of—in the tropical flora, 1. 81 
not essential, 11. 134 
Individualism, sign of superficiality, 
1, 270 
disadvantages of, 11. 270 
produces world citizenship, 11. 163 
advantages of western, II, 266, 315, 
319 
inequality of men, 11. 80, 289 
inheritance, I. 21, 189, 191 
can be overcome, II. 367 


385 


Initiative, make God and devil power- 
less, 1. 169 
Innovation desire for, makes ‘super- 
freial, /3. 133 
enmity of the Indians to, 1. 290 
of the Chinese, 11. 29 
Inspiration, can be retained, 1. 269 
Institutions, good—do not allow us to 
make any conclusions concerning 
their members, 11. 265 
lose in significance in proportion to 
human value, 11. 80 
the best, are in America, 11. 285, 319 
as creative powers, II. 266 
Intellect, predominates in the soul of 
the advanced individual, 11. 231 
as impersonal power, II. 241 
Intellectualism, Chinese, 11, 106 
disadvantages of, 1. 234, 242, 328 
Inventiveness and memory, as opposite 
poles of action, 11. 137 
Invocation, possible effects of, 1. 93 
Irrationality of all Indian manifesta- 
tions, 1. 99, 106 
Irrelevance of externals, American and 
Indian manifestations of, the same 
ideal, 11. 342 
Islam, blurs racial differences, 1. 178, 
203, 205 
formative power of, 1, 202 
gives superiority, I. 207 
as the religion of the simple soldier, 


1G PANE 

as the religion of absolute surrender, 
I. 204 

and Calvinism, relationship of, 1. 
202, 207 


Occidental nature of, 1. 212 


Jainism, 1. 174 
Japan, nature of, 11. 143 
men of—as the centre of nature, II. 
208 
their best spirit, 11, 205 
their education of the children of the 
people, 11. 147 
can become westernised, 11. 218 
Japanese, essential nature of, 11. 148, 
218, 226, 228 
unintellectual, 11. 207 


386 INDEX 


Japanese, Cont, 
not individualised, 11, 208 
impersonal, 11, 179 
incapable of change, 11. 171, 219 
not imitative but gift for exploita- 
tion, 11, 219 
fundamental characteristics of, 11. 
148, 174, 187, 217 
ultimately uninteresting, 11. 223 
women, nature of, II. 201 
profundity, 11. 207 
becomes apparent in their patriot- 
ism, II. 160° 
religiousness, 11. 159, 171 ef seq.y 
228 
courtesy, II. 146 
Jesuits as Yogis, 1. 128 
Jews, as the chosen people, 1. 148 
Christians and Moslems as brothers, 
I, 212 
Jiu-jitsu, as the fundamental symbol 
of the Japanese, 11. 219 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 11. 119 
Jokes, metaphysically equivalent to seri- 
ousness, I. 334 
Joyfulness, Buddhistic, 1. 60 
Judgment, last, advantages of believ- 
ing in, I. 151, 253 
Justification by faith, 1. 245; 11. 311 


Kant, his structure of the soul not ulti- 
mate, I. 121, 264 
Karma doctrine, I, 251; 1. 328 
Keeping still, value of, 1. 137 
Killing as a normal process, 11. 300 
cruelty in the process of, 11. 34 
Knights, as the most noble type, 11. 175 
Indian, I. 184 
Knowledge, lack of, as an advantage, 
The WZ, 
the cause of all evil and suffering, 
1334's oll, e295 
Knowledge man of, is beyond truth 
and error, I. 263 
advantage of the—who is a religious 
teacher, I. 65, 236 
everything in life serves the, 1. 332 


Lack of interest better than charity, 
St 


Language, no—can say everything, 11. 
33 
Latin, peoples, in what respect superior 
to the German, I. 180 
Laxity, Japanese—in sexual matters, 11. 
198, 204 
Laziness, as the most deadly sin, 1. 
282 
Leaders, characteristic of Japanese, 11. 
217 
Legal consciousness, of the Chinese, 11. 
85 
of Englishmen, 11. 302 
Levels of existence, as categories of 
age, I. 303 
each one as specific barrier, 1. 150 
Liberation by means of recognition, 1, 
115, 136 
the extreme longing of everyone, I. 
Sil 
by means of self-control, 11. 19 
Life, nature of, 1. 334; 11. 50, 253 
creation of, 11. 250 
as the essence of metaphysical reality, 
BES P4"4 
modifies its expression in accordance 
with possibilities, 1, 34, 3245; II. 
212 
art of, I. 184 
problem of, solution of the external, 
Il, 338 
environment for, advantages of an 
unfavourable, 1. 330 
metaphysical gain in, 11. 353 
theory of God-given, 1. 149; In. 
87 
each one positive, 11. 203 
creative effect of, 1. 214 
never a purpose in itself, 11. 353 
renunciation of—Indian and Euro- 
pean, I. 40 
on earth, absolute advantage of, 1. 
139 
Limitation, more valuable than its op- 
posite, I. 74 
as the ultimate aim of freedom, 1. 
324 
absolute, of men as phenomena, 1. 
27; 11. 288, 365 
necessity of self-, 1. 31; 11. 294, 357 


te 


INDEX 


Logic, Indian as animal phenomenon 
of luxuriance, I. 107 
Loneliness, renders the feeling of being 
isolated, impossible, 11, 238 
not advantageous to everyone, II. 
238 
Longing, as a motive power, II. 43 
Love, as a product of the imagination, 
Nii46;' 11.258 
as a question of concentration, I. 
274 
why it beautifies, 11, 19 
overestimation in the West, I. 2363 
II. 100 
an objective power only in the West, 
I. 265, 274 
possible divinity of, 1. 237; 11. 100 
of two human beings offers no guar- 
antee for the excellence of their 
progeny, II. 98 
not a monopoly of Christianity, 1. 
228, 237 
divine—innate in everyone, 11. 85 
as the easiest road to God, 1. 237 
Chinese, 11. 96 
sensuous—as a means to spiritual 
progress, I, 96; 11. 199 
Christian, conditioned physiologically 
rather than theologically, 1. 148 
manifold expressions of, 11. 152 
essentially inconsiderate, 11. 65 
Buddhistic, 1. 61; 1. 153 
absolute advantage of, 11. 317 
art of, 1. 1783 11. 199 
life of, Indian, 1. 179 
Chinese, 11. 96 
Lowliness, Christian idealisation of, 1. 
64 
Luther as a Catholic, 1. 233, 288 
theoretically superficial, 1. 245; 1. 
31) 
his definition of the nature of reli- 
gion, II. 311 
tragedy of, 1. 245 
profoundest culture of the mind 
traceable to him, 11. 313 
Lutheranism, Christianity has surren- 
dered its formative power in it, 1, 
by} 
nature of, 11. 89 


387 


Machinery of the law, its power an 
index of political immaturity, 11. 
76 
excessive importance in the demo- 
cratic community, II. 80, 354 
as substitute for slavery, 11. 339 
as an end in itself, 11, 332 
Magic, apologia of, 1. 94; II. 114 
why it loses in significance, 1. 233 
as a profession, I, 143 
black and white, 1. 130 
Mahatma, I. 318 
Mahayana Doctrine, vide Buddhism 
Man, primeval, as the child of the 
gods, 11. 255 
and wife, metaphysical relationship 
between, I. 34, 171 
Manifestation, every—can give ex- 
pression to the extreme, 11. 163 
Manifestations, what they are condi- 
tioned by, I. 16 
never to be taken seriously meta- 
physically, 1. 29, 33, 107, 164, 
193, 235, 254 et seq., 322; 11. 67, 
Sil 
relative value of, 1. 22; 11. 175, 327 
all—limited in terms of time, 11. 
300, 352 
why the western are more potent than 
the eastern, II. 315 
Mantras, 1. 93 
Marcus Aurelius, 1, 201; 11. 36 
Marriage, of the future, 11. 101 
a matter of procreation, II. 97 
not a means to erotic culture, 1. 
180 
Masculinity, of the western soul, 1 
167, 228 
and femininity, metaphysical signifi- 
cance of, I. 171 
conditioned by surroundings, 1. 34 
Masquerading, as means to self-realisa- 
tion, I. 28 
Masters of theosophy, 1. 149, 275 
Materialisation, 1. 120 
of the spirit dependent on accidental 
circumstances, I, 254; 11. 253 
Materialism, nature of, 1. 118 
good in a transitory stage, 11. 260, 
284 


388 INDEX 


Materialism, Cont. 
favourable basis of spiritual art, II. 
167 
increased by charity, 1. 249 
of the West as the effect of Chris- 
tianity, I. 66 
of the West comparable with infan- 
tile, 11. 284 
meaning of western, I. 213; 11. 173, 
282 ef seq. 
the sole path to overcome it, 11. 343 
Mathematician, nature of his special 
talent, 1.267 | 
Maturity, the late, of the highly tal- 
ented, 1. 328 
Maya, as the spirit of western science, 
ee iba kG] 
doctrine, physiologically equivalent 
to western naturalism, I, 40 
innate in inhabitants of the Tropics, 
1. 41 
Meditation, value and nature of, 1. 127 
Memory and inventiveness as poles of 
activity, 11, 137 
Men of action, nervous crises of, 11. 40 
must believe in providence, I. 294 
essentially limited, 1. 295, 300 
Westerners as, II. 275, 312 
Merit, and grace, 1. 308 
nothing outside labour of men is 
really, 11. 370 
Metaphysician, nature of, 1. 15, 337 
specific reality of the, 1. 124; 11. 189 
Method of teaching, Indian, 1. 259 
Chinese, 11. 104 
Method of treatment, productive effect 
of, 1. 84 
Methodism, influence upon English 
culture, I. 277 
Middle Ages, spirit of the, 11. 174 
Milieu, significance of, 1. 32, 46, 84; 
Wen A 12 
Miracles, impossibility of eradicating, 
II, 250 
possibility of so-called, 1. 92 
Mission of the West, purely practical, 
I W2ssg one 
Missions to the heathens should be pro- 
hibited, 11, 112, 131 
justification of, 11. 274 


Modesty, no advantage, 11. 344 
Mogul emperors, as the greatest types 
of rulers, 1. 201 
Moguls, culture of, western nature of, 
1. 209, 217 
relation to the Renaissance, I. 217 
Mohammedans, distinction of, 1. 202 
their tolerance, 1. 202 
as idealists, 1. 213 
relation to Christians, 1. 213 
important in India only as rulers, 1. 


200 
materialistic conceptions of the, 1. 
213 
Monasticism, one-sidedness of its ideal, 
I. 183 


Cingalese, 1. 51, 59 
Burmese, 11, 14 
Japanese, 11. 171 
Monism, does not exclude pluralism, 
I. 256 
Monotheism, why it takes the place of 
polytheism everywhere, 1. 103 
makes moral but mean, 1. 103, 207 
creates the strongest character, 1. 208 
Moral, power as the fundamental force 
of the world, 11. 76 
culture, 11. 130 
high—culture of the Chinese, 11. 52, 
82, 129 
instinct, to what extent existent, 1. 85 
revolt of the modern against what is, 
II, 53 
Moralist, typically amoral, 1. 300 
Morality, as a question of insight, 1. 
239, 273; 3295 Tle S426 
and practicability, relation between, 
1.853 11..129, 266 
as the profoundest quality of the 
Chinese, 11. 52 
as self-realisation, 11, 72 
as the basis of the order of nature, 
haa 
as the basis of the state, 11. 76, 102 
Mormons, 11. 310 
Mortification, meaning of, 1. 142 
Miller, Johannes, 1. 164 
Music, programme, I. 334 
Indian, 1. 334 
and rhythm, 11. 183 


ee a 





Ne a 


INDEX 


Music, Cont. 
why the extreme can be said only in 
its language, I. 280 
and metaphysics, 11. 365 
Mutability, importance of, 1. 15, 66; 
II. 288 
Mysticism, why Christian—is 
equivalent to Indian, 11. 230 
to what extent profounder, 1. 368 
Catholic nature of all, 1. 104 
never inimical to polytheism, 1, 104 
Mystics, nature of, 1. 104 
Persian, 1. $5, 227 
and sceptics, point of contact, I. 295 
road from the theist to the, 11. 329 
Mythology, Indian, intelligible only 
as vegetation, I. 39 
truer than history, 1. 110 
as the most substantial expression of 
truth, 1. 169; 11. 250 
as the final word, 11. 252 


not 


Napoleon, 11. 25, 83 
Nation, there is no Indian, 1. 106, 187 
National character and religion, 1. 176, 
213 
National feeling, compatible with citi- 
zenship of the world, 11. 351 
Nationalism, 11. 53 
Naturalism, 1. 40; 1. 221 
Nature, cause of the ennobling effect 
of great, I. 26 
more interesting than art, 1. 23 et 
seq.; 11. 138 
and spirit, metaphysical relationship, 
1. 3223 11. 140 
represents the highest authority to the 
Chinese, 11. 46, 124 
hardly exists for the Indian, 1. 10, 
70 
inevitability of predestination of, 1. 
26 
inevitability of predestination of— 
can be overcome, I. 240, 283; 1. 
358 
primordial power of American, 11. 
288 
conservatism of, 11. 29 
the Japanese feeling for, 1. 180, 
208-9, 221 


389 


Nature, Cont, 
and the development of art, 11. 143 
the Far Eastern feeling for—com- 
pared with the European, 11. 139, 
182, 295 
leads precisely to what wisdom has 
anticipated, 11. 294, 306 
laws of, Chinaman knows no, I. 76 
is something which must be over- 
come, II. 47, 358 
Negation of life, in India and Europe, 
1, 44 
Neighbour, love of, to what extent—is 
valuable, 1. 65 
advantage of the Christian, 11. 274 
practical—makes men narrow, I. 51 
makes superficial, 1. 182 
New Thought, advantages and merits 
of, 1. 182 
the only mystic movement of this age 
which has a future in the West, 
I. 1643 11. 343 
the Copernican Act of, 11. 342 
the limits of its beneficial effect, 11. 
328 
Nietzsche, 1, 170 
aspired to the same as New Thought, 
II. 344 
relation to Buddha, 1. 42 
Nihilism, Buddhistic, 1. 42 
Nirvana, physiological cause for the 
longing for, 1. 44 
multiplicity of the concept of, 1. 49 
Buddhistic, 1. 49, 60 
and the Brahmanistic view of, 1. 
307 
why Buddha taught nothing definite 
concerning, I. 49 
Nobility, 11. 274 
Non-ego, basis of the Buddhistic doc- 
trine of, 1. 49 
its detrimental practical effect, 1. 63 
Non-rule, as an ideal of government, 
II. 76 
Non-uniformity, blessings of, 11. 230 
Nouveaux riches, 11. 269, 318 
Normality, ideal of, 11. 114 ef seq. 


Obedience and command, psychological 
connection of, 1. 205 


390 INDEX 


Obstacles, and assistance, 7. 330 
Occultism, critical foundation of, 1. 
121 
erroneous interpretation of true facts, 
I. 120 
suitable only to rare temperaments, 
i io, 
inclination towards—detracts from 
the possible historical significance 
of theosophy, 1. 160 
danger for religion, 1. 161, 162 
and morality, 1. 128 
no better as a religion than Ostwald’s 
theory, I. 161 
and sspiritualisation, contrast be- 
tween, I, 130, 133, 162 
Occultists, generally inferior as human 
beings, 1. 129, 136 
cannot be leaders, 1. 162 
ocean, the manifoldness of, 1. 72; 11. 
243 
Official life, uninteresting everywhere 
because controlled mechanically, 
II, 26 
Om, the syllable, 1. 243 
Omniscience, befitting only to God, 1. 
205 
and scepticism join hands, 1. 295 
Opposition of the sexes, cosmically not 
absolute, 1. 172 
metaphysical significance of, 1. 34, 
172, 
Optimism, as a creative power, I. 250; 
II, 268 
the Indian philosophy of, 1. 250 
Orientals, versatility of, 1. 29 
intuitive power of, 11. 83 
Originality, Indian antagonism to, I. 
290, 293 
antagonism of Chinese litterati, 11. 
104 
no one is completely opposed to, 1. 
210; 11. 369 
why rare in China, 11. 43 
significance of its predominance in 
the West, 11. 270 
overestimation of, 1. 291 et seq. 
Overestimation, value of, 11. 215 
Overpopulation, favourable to moral 
culture, 11. 44 


Pain, subject to the will, 1. 35 
as a road to God, I. 133 
Palate, world philosophy of the, 11. 94 
Pandit, 1. 257, 259 
Paradise, truth of the conception of, 
I. 85 
Shiva’s, 1. 313 
the only conceivable, 11. 254 
Paris, stimulating power of, I. 32; 11. 
44 
Passion, as superficial phenomenon, I. 
98 
no value, I. 274 
Pathos, of the life of the Moham- 
medan, 1. 206 
of the belief in the last judgment, 
1. 151 
of sin, 1. 252; 11. 332 
of Protestantism, 11. 92 
Patriotism, 11. 161, 205, 370 
Peace, corrupting as an ideal, 11. 123 
eternal—inconceivable, 11. 290 
specifically Oriental ideal, 1. 169 
only the weakling longs for, 1. 
169 
Peasantry, Chinese, 11. 70, 124 
Russian, 11. 327 
Indian, 11. 327 
Peoples, of the earth complement each 
other, 11. 185 
solidarity of, 11. 351 
Perception, all recognition is, 1. 267 
Perfection, evident in itself, 1. 69 
as the highest and sole problem, 1. 
74, 137, 182, 283, 306, 310, 332; 
II. 116, 347 
as the exponent of spirituality, 1. 
134, 327 
possible only within limits, 11. 349 
typical—more advantageous to most 
men than habitual, 1. 188; 11. 58, 
178, 192, 271, 347 
every definite form of—is only tem- 
porarily the highest, 1. 324 
of cognition and of life are mutu- 
ally exclusive, 1. 297 
every—is tied to special conditions, 
11, 5625) 10.9 
necessarily one-sided, 1, 31, 295; m. 
20, 108, 154, 190 


INDEX 


Perfection, Cont. 
one kind of—fiourishes only at the 
expense of another, 1. 182 
and progress, I, 132, 136; I. 262, 
346 et seq. 
of the Europeans achieved over van- 
quished nature, 11. 282 
and happiness, 11. 110 
concentric—is higher than eccentric, 
II, 146 
not fulfilment in earthly sense, 11. 
S05) 
and totality, 11. 333 
Personal life, potentiality in the West, 
WG ES 
possibility for the richest, 11. 364 
Person, the, as a superficial phenome- 
non, I. 72 
as an instrument, II. 189 
as an organ of the ego, I. 330 
expresses being only partially, 1. 155 
not identical with the ego, 1, 326, 
330; 11. 258 
Personality, no highest, 1. 14, 329; 1. 
358 
not attainable for everyone, 11. 190 
Pessimism, vanquishment of—by trans- 
formation of the world, 11. 330 
Buddha’s, 1. 59 
Phenomenology, truth of Buddhistic, 1. 


39, 46 

Philology, as the gate to humanism, 1. 
105 

Philosophy, fundamental problem of, 
TT 2, 


as a means of expression, I. 257 
incomparability of Indian and Euro- 
pean, I. 257 
progress of this, 11. 307 
study of—in India and Europe, 1. 
258 
Piety, Indian and European compared, 
I, 225 
Pilgrimages, meaning of, 1. 221 
Pilgrims, Indian, 1. 91, 250 
Japanese, 11. 158 
Plants, most perfect spiritual expres- 
sion, II. 17, 140 
contain in principle the solution of 
all problems, 1. 45; 11. 18 


391 


Plants, Cont. 
the tropical world of, 1. 79, 81; 
1 bS 
Plasticity, value of, 1. 15, 67 
as an ideal, 1. 325 
Plato, as a believer in metempsychosis, 
iG eye 
psychological foundation of his doc- 
trine of ideas, 1. 269 
and Eros, 1. 238 
Play, to be taken just as seriously as 
earnestness, I. 334 
the creation of the world regarded 
ER ie 
Plotinus, 1. 270 
Poetry, expressiveness of, 1. 280 
Poets, nature of, 1. 326 
as human beings rarely capable of 
perfection, I. 301 
as materialists, 11. 168 
self-overestimation of, 11. 246 
not a highest type of men, but spe< 
cialised organisms, II, 62 
must be without personality, 1. 15 
owe their social significance to acci- 
dental circumstances, I. 24 
and metaphysicians, 1. 15 
Political culture, rests upon a moral 
basis in China, 11. 53 
the—ideal, 11. 354 
Politics, interest in—harmful to most 
people, 11. 81 
Polygamy, advantages of, 1. 
183 
Polytheism, root of, 1. 101 
advantages of, 1. 102 
of the Catholic church, 1. 103 
as expression of non-unifiable soul, 
135103 
of theosophy, the most harmful of 
aAUIC aes 
Popes, the, as types of rulers, 1. 201 
Possibility, as specific reality of the 
metaphysician, 11. 188 
Poverty, absolute evil, 11. 343 
Power, as evil, 11. 298 
and right, 11. 301 
of the West over nature as a misfore 
tune, 11. 293, 297 
as an advantage, II. 329 


103, 


392 


Practicability, as the fundamental na- 
ture of life, 11, 244 
morality and, I. 85; 11. 129, 266 
Pragmatism, 1. 116, 257, 263 
Prayer, not begging, I. 225 
of the Mohammedan comparable to 
a military march, 1. 205 
why it strengthens, 1. 225 
strengthens the gods, 11. 39 
significance of, I. 127, 225; 1. 39 
Predestination, belief in, advantages 
and disadvantages of, I. 206, 253 
denied by the activity of the West, 
11675011329 
Prehistoric Age, animals of, 1. 69, 82; 
Il, 284, 288 
Prejudice, not more superficial than 
any other phenomenon, II. 67, 175 
is essential to most people, 1. 115 
creates reality, I. 115 
must be overcome altogether, I. 329; 
11, 308 
the different types of animals re- 
garded as, 11. 176 
Pride, favourable to respect for others, 
II, 302 
Priests, Buddhistic, 1. 51 
Japanese—Buddhistic, 11. 156 
mistakes of Christian, 1. 51 
Catholic—superior in idea to Prot- 
estant, 11. 115 
Primitiveness, as the ideal of over- 
civilised towns, 1. 198 
and culture, 11. 139 
as the original condition and as the 
goal, 11. 356 
Problems of men are extinguished by 
the light of Brahma, 1. 314 
Production, impossible to perfected 
man, I. 293 
meaning of, 11, 10 
spiritual—as continuation of pre- 
existent formation, 1. 210 
Productivity, secret of Japanese, 11. 187 
Profitableness, as an zxsthetic principle, 
Ii,93:25 
Profundity, definition of, 11. 162 
conditioned by concentration, I. 271, 
277 
achieved by physical power, 11, 173 


INDEX 


Profundity, Cont, 
may appear superficial in course of 
time, II. 106 
possible—of superficial men, 1. 98 
the—of God, 11. 52 
of nature, II. 207 
Japanese, 11. 161 
of the conditions of consciousness of 
Indian sages, 1. 264 
feeling for—and nervous power, I. 
272 
why religious—is favoured by trop- 
ical nature, 1. 57° 
to what extent Tolstoi lacked, 1. 78 
Programme music, I. 334 
Progress, a purely biological process, 
I, 132 
to what extent related and compati- 
ble with spiritualisation, 1. 132, 
136 et seq.; 11. 263 
as a series of intimate tragedies, 11. 
127 
as the victory of matter over mind, 
I. 34 
zigzag course of, 11. 203, 355 
occult, 1, 132 
rapidity of western—and how condi- 
tioned, II. 269 
only possible in a world of strife, 
11, 305 
as robbery, 11. 297 
leads man to the artificial, 11. 336 
meaning of inner, 11. 238 
leads to simplification of life, 11. 339 
ideal—more substantial than real, 11. 
353 
and culture, belong to different di- 
mensions, II. 135 
real foundation of its modern mean- 
ing, 11. 271 
unknown to the Greeks, 11, 330 
beyond earthly life, 11. 352 
inevitable evils of, 11. 325, 357 
to what extent justified in principle, 
Tle 3 SUsNS 5G 
Proportion, Japanese feeling for, 11. 
182 
significance of harmonious, 11. 183 
Prosperity, should be the normal condi- 
tion, 11. 344 





INDEX 


Prostitution, the problem of, the solu- 
tion of, 11. 196 
Protestantism, has conquered completely 
in the historical sense, I. 158, 167, 
233; 1. 61, 261, 343 
spiritual technical differences between 
Catholicism and, I. 232, 288 
spirit of, 1. 233; 11. 90 
does not make recognition but action 
more profound, I. 232 
becomes progressively less of a 
church, 11. 113 et seg. 
Indian, 1. 174, 231, 288 
inartistic, 11. 93 
Chinese, 11. 90 
Proteus, as prototype of the meta- 
physician, I. 14 
as an ideal, 1. 325 
boundaries of, 1. 27, 326; 11. 188 
the step above, 11. 364 
Protoplasmic, as highest condition, 1. 
323 
Providence, why the idea of—has been 
dispelled in the West, I. 1683 II. 
329 
why men of action believe in, 1. 294 
error of the idea of, 1. 1973; It. 


352 
content of truth in the idea of, 11. 
153 
Provincial minds, inferior to urban, 1. 
33 


Psychic phenomena do not differ from 
material, 1. 40, 321 
development does not imply spiritual- 
isation, I, 132 
realities exist objectively, 1. 
321; 11. 39 
barriers just as real as material, 1. 
17, 84, 114, 191; 11. 174 
lack of—culture of western founders 
of religion, 11. 311 
atmosphere, I. 222, 307; 11. 44 
Psychology, Buddhistic, 1. 46 
Indian, profundity of, 1. 264, 268 
Punishment, as a deterrent, 11. 35 
every—violates social consciousness, 
1. 302 
Puritanism, disadvantages of, 1. 305; 
II. 104 


119, 


393 


Purity, of Japanese courtesans, 11. 194 
et seq. 
sexual ideal of, 11. 194 e¢ seq. 


Qualities: there is no general denomi- 
nator for, 1. 102 
Quantity, as the general American ideal, 
TTeLOssa a7 
significance of, 11, 131, 210, 251 
Quietism, Chinese, 11. 47 
cause of Indian, 1. 297, 298 


Race, exists only within limited periods 
of time, Il. 166 
conditioned psychically, 1. 190 
not an ultimate authority, 11. 358 
when it represents something ulti- 
mate, II. 170 
and religion, I. 176, 213; 11. 109, 


173 
the meaning of fanaticism of, 11. 
53 
Radical nature of all fundamental feel- 
ings, I. 130 


Rational and decorative elements in 
architecture, I. 214 
Rationalism, unknown to the Indian, 
1. 108, 257 
of western art, I. 277 
of the Catholic Church, 11. 157 
of Theosophists, 1. 139 
Realisation, the one thing that we need, 
I. 229, 290; 11. 229, 349 
the Indian sages were only interested 
in, 1. 290, 293 
in imagination, I. 294 
not compatible with life and recog- 
nition, I. 295 
not innovation is the ideal, 11. 348-9 
Realism, most suitable to the masses, 
I, 254 
Reality, of man only a portion of the 
whole of reality, 1. 121 
different levels of, 1. 124 
Indian—different from European, 1. 
92, 109 
psychic—and imagination, 11. 257 
spiritual—not exhaustively determi- 
nable by any intellectual co-ordi- 
nates, I, 257 


394 INDEX 


Reason, and the activity of nature, 11. 
291 
not a match for metaphysical real- 
ity, I. 108 
the man who has become perfectly 
inward stands above, I. 282 
Receptivity, different kinds of capacity 
LOT asiy, 
power of—of cultured human beings 
weak compared with nature, 1. 72 
Recognition, the road to, I. 269-70 
depends everywhere upon perception, 
1, 267, 292 
necessarily turns into action, I. 130 
importance of, 1. 239 
and relation to life, 1. 296, 301 
life more important than, 1. 310 
thoughts born as independent entities 
and, 10297, 
limited western—historically more 
effective than the more profound 
—of the East, 1. 292; 11. 315 
metaphysical, conditions of, 1. 291 
nature of, I. 224 
impulse of—as form of egoism, II. 
372 
critical—advocates the possibility of 
assumptions of occultism, 1. 121 
means of—man must grow beyond 
his inherited power of, 1. 265 
Reflection, only a means to perception, 
I. 267 
Religion, true meaning of, 1. 294 
and the character of the race, 1. 176 
modern conceptions of—too wide, I. 
166 
superfluousness of a new, I. 165, 
170; 11. 349 
meaning of a change of, 11. 229 
connection between—and the race, I. 
$76,213 11,1112170 
inherited—the best, 1. 235 
of health, 11. 288 
of the future, 11. 226 
the possibility of a universal—is past, 
| a ey) 
cause of the attractive power of In- 
dian, 1. 171 
Religion (religiosity), nature of, 11. 
113 


Religion, Cont. 
question of its intensification, 1. 
270 
Indian, I. 220 ef seq. 
Chinese, 115 375,91, 4113 
Japanese, 11. 159, 165, 226 
Russian, 1. 227 
western, II. 313 ef seq. 
lowest form of, 11. 14 
and sensuousness, II. 115 
Religious, community, consists orig- 
inally of insignificant people, 1. 
146 
founders, comparison between west- 
ern and eastern, 11, 313 et seq. 
advantages of wise—founders, I. 65, 
229 
Renaissance, II. 62 
Repetition, spiritual significance of, 1. 
243 
Republic, bad government by a, 11. 79, 
215, 354 et seq. 
Resentment, as a product of Christian- 
ity, 1. 56, 64 
of the poor against the rich is small 
in the East, 11. 247 ef seq. 
Responsibility, feeling for, is developed 
by monotheism, 1. 207 
psychological cause of western, 1. 151 
Chinese, 11. 74, 121 
Reverence, the basis of all virtue, 11. 
59 
of something higher, metaphysical 
significance of, I. 156 
Revolutions, as fever phenomena, 11. 25 
necessity of, 11, 78, 300 
Rhythm, of Far-Eastern drawings, 1. 
282 
in nature and art, 11. 183 
Riches, their matter-of-fact assumption 
is the best means of overcoming 
their disadvantages, 11. 345 
as religious postulates, 11. 340 
formative power of, 11. 212, 344 
Riddle, of the world, solution of the, 
I, 314 
Right, the, of the stronger, 11. 302 
and might, 11. 301 
Ritual, doctrine of, profundity of the 
Indian religious, 1. 229 


"“——_ -. 


INDEX 


Ritual, Cont. 
Chinese, 11. 59, 66 
psychological significance of, 1. 92, 
289 
cause for the overestimation by all 
early cultures of, 11. 66 
why it continues to lose in impor- 
tance, I. 233 
philosophy of Indian, 1. 92, 229 
Romanesque form, 11, 49 
Ruins, whence their effect, I. 78 
Rulers, Europeans stand on the highest 
level as, 11. 45 ; 
Rules, only good in so far as they lib- 
erate, I. 194 ‘ 
Russians, as the best psychologists, 11. 
45 
similarity to the Indians, 1. 227; I. 
69 
religion of the, 1. 227 
feeling for nature of the, 11. 69 
incapacity for organisation of, II. 
337 
lack of power of abstraction of, 1 
78 
wide background of the, 11. 67 et 


seq. 


Sacrifice, 11. 317 
human, meaning of, 1. 95 
Sages, as basic tones, 1. 305; 11, 119 
to what extent they are beyond strife, 
i303 
the steps above them, 1. 312 
Indian—as minds of the second rank, 
1,265 
bad authors, 1. 293 
Chines and Greek, 11. 43 
Saints, value of, 1. 157 
though inactive more important than 
any man of action, I. 247 
as the basic tone of the symphony of 
life, 1. 3053 11. 119 
more than the sage, I. 312 
poor authors, 1. 293 
inimical to communication, I. 245 
inferior, I. 143, 254 
accidental whether a man becomes 
a saint or a criminal, 1. 255 
Christian and Buddhistic, 11. 171 


395 


Salvation by recognition, 1. 131, 237, 
939, (242):252, 283, 327, 932; 11 
{sia 17 

by faith, 1, 151 

Sanctity, of a place, meaning of, 1. 221 

Saviour, saves not as a man but as an 
ideal, 1. 152-7 

nature of the, 1. 157 

Saviours, of the world, henceforth su- 
perfluous, 1. 157 

Scepticism and omniscience possess a 
point of contact, 1. 295 

Scholasticism, typical accompaniment of 
spirituality, 1. 262 

Science, as Maya, 1. 111 

as the forerunner of art, 11. 296 
what makes it superfluous, 1. 268 
history of, 11. 307 

Sculpture, Indian, 1. 98, 278 

Greek, 1, 23 

Seclusion, harmfulness of, 1. 76 

Sects, different significance in the East 
and the West of, 11. 313 

Japanese, 11, 155, 227 
Self-control, 11, 132, 294 
-limitation, necessity for, 1. 31; 1. 
293 
-tule, advantages of, 11. 215 
-lessness, specific—of spiritual man, 
Toil 
-lessness of the highest man, 11. 372 
-regulation of nature, 11. 127, 301 
overestimation, advantages of, II. 
242 
of men, II. 237 
-realisation, different ways towards, 
I. 15, 1455 11. 282 
succeeds best within the limits of 
familiar concepts, 1. 165 
the shortest road to, 11. 232 
a digression round the world as 
the shortest road to, 1. 17; 1. 
364 

Senses, originally all equivalent, 11, 94 

Sensuousness, of the European atmos- 
phere, 11. 197 

of religious natures, 11. 115 
as the entirety of love, 1. 274 et seq. 

Sexual intercourse, as a sacrament, I, 

97; 11, 199 


396 


Sexual Intercourse, Cont. 
Japanese conception of, 11. 194 
Sexual problems, Japanese solution of, 
i. 193 et seq. 
Indian solution of, 11. 199 
Shakespeare, 1. 103, 332 
Shinto, 11, 205, 222 
Significance, primary, I. 18, 110, 285; 
TL 5iSs3.0 
purely intensive, I. 264 
conditions facts, 1. 285; 11. 31, 199 
and appearance, are not related hap- 
hazard in divine worship, 1. 93 
mysterious interrelation of, 1. 217 
and sound, I. 93, 243 
does not exist isolated, 11. 33 
cannot be deduced necessarily from 
Wha dey 1 PbS ipl 
and accident, 11. 253 
Significant individuals, cannot be dis- 
ciples, 1. 146 
Simpleness, why favourable to spiritual- 
isation, I. 133 
Simplification, artificial, 1. 279 
of life in America, 11. 339 
Sin, nature of, 1, 251 
Indians know no, I. 251 
as a barbaric conception, I. 252 
as a road to God, I. 309; 11. 306, 
327, 368 
consciousness of, to be deprecated, 
I, 252 ef seq. 
as the hereditary sin of Christian- 
ity, 1. 64, 207 
origin of, 11. 327 
Slavery, completely replaced by ma- 
chinery, 11. 332 
re-establishment of, 11. 335 
Snakes, 1. 83 
Social ideal, realised in ancient China, 


LAOS SB i shes 
the future solution of the, 11. 319, 
LEW 
Social question, the kernel of the, 11. 
127) 


Chinese solution of the, 11, 56 
Socialism, 11. 305 
Soul, as nature, 1. 19 
as surroundings, I. 34, 316; 1, 238 
protoplasmic nature of, 1. 321 


INDEX 


Soul, Cont. 
does not possess the power of chang- 
ing all other reality, 1. 287 
is crippled by the modern world, 11. 
334 
as an autonomous ruler, II. 346 
-lessness, as an advantage, II. 233, 
332 
-transmigration of the, 1. 137, 303; 
Il. 367 
not a fact but an interpretation, 
I, 150 
Plato’s belief in, 1. 152 
the fortune of Europe is its lack 
of faith in, 1. 151 
Soyen Shaku, 11. 228 
Spirals, as the method of nature, 11. 10, 
17 
Spirit of the age, 1. 223 
its uniformity in the first centuries 
after Christ, 11. 150, 169 
Spirit, power over matter, 1. 316; II. 


252, 329 

capable of changing the world, u. 
275 

can command all laws of nature, 11. 
27 


and body, interaction of, 1. 120, 161 
and nature, metaphysical relation- 
ship of, 1. 322; 11. 140 
possesses in China the greatest density, 
II. 68 
of men and attitude to nature, m1. 
295 
revelation by accident, 11. 253 
is all the stronger the richer the body 
is, 1/2753) 11 1935345 
reveals itself where there is sufficient 
power to express it, 1. 224 
Spirits, creation of, 11. 38 
seeing—as a symptom of disease, 1. 
143 et seq. 
Spiritual, giants weak on earth, 1, 146, 
148 et seq., 320 
power, nature and meaning of, 1. 
134, 148 
truth, essentially paradoxical, 1. 65 
Spiritualisation, nature of, 1. 134 
and progress, mutual relation of, 1. 
133, 137 


INDEX 


Spirituality, favoured by faith in au- 
thority, I. 292 
favoured by enmity to innovation, 1. 
292 
of Oriental art, 1. 281 
of the East greater but more meagre, 
1h As) 
Spitefulness as a primitive instinct, 11. 
37, 
State, the, as a purpose in itself, 11. 
299 
the best possible form of—is incon- 
ceivable, 11. 55 
Stimulus, man’s dependence upon, II. 
ibe, 
significance in religion, 1, 221; 1. 
230 
Struggle, eternal, as necessary conse- 
quence of the western formula of 
life, 11. 290 
changes the soul, 11. 303 
no recognition possible without it, 
II. 304 
advantages of the world of, 11. 306 
Stylisation, only in rhythmic—nature 
completely realised, 11. 189 
Success as an ideal, 11. 233, 262, 331 
Suffering, can be overcome only by 
altering the human state of con- 
sciousness, I. 284 
value of, 11. 327 
Suitability of every being to his world, 
Il. 243 et seq. 
and morality, 1. 84, 131 
Sun-worship, profound meaning of, 1. 
223 
Superficiality, of Chinamen, 11. 63 
of all intercourse, 11. 63 ef seq. 
Superiority, as the cardinal virtue of 
the ruler, 11. 79 
of Mohammedan women, I, 206 
of Chinese statesmen, 11. 51 
of Mohammedans, 1. 203 
of the Mogul emperors, 1. 201 
Super-man, I. 320 
may be inferior as such, 1. 145 
cannot be recognised as such, 1. 
320 
weak in this world, 1. 149, 320 
erroneous ideal of the, 1. 198 


397 


Super-man. Cont. 
the idealism of the West is guided 
by the, 11, 118 
Nietzsche’s, 1. 42, 198, 275 
Super-national quality of the emperors 
of Rome and of India, and of the 
Pope, I. 201-2 
Superstition, nature of, 1, 163 
every belief in the non-ego is, 1. 163 
advantages of, I. 138 
Indian, 1, 254 
reconciliation of wisdom and, 1. 255 
Survival after death, possibility of, 1. 
35, 135, 2403 11. 240 
Symbolism, direct feeling for—of the 
Indian, 1. 92 
Sympathy, Asiatic lack of, 11. 36 
as a product of culture, 11, 37 
the lowest form of, 1. 166 
masculine equivalent of, 1. 170 
Buddha’s, 11. 36 
Symphony of life, 11. 251, 352 
System, no—exhausts Indian wisdom, 1. 
257, 261 
never more than a skeleton, 1. 18 
and man do not necessarily stand in 
any relationship, 11. 36, 52, 129, 
200, 346 
creative effect of a better, 11. 266 
the Indian passion for, 1. 107 


Tagore, Devendranath, 1, 288 
Rabindranath, 1. 338 
Talent, can be replaced by concentra- 
tion, I. 267 
primarily an obstacle to spiritualisa- 
tion, I. 133 
Indian conception of, 1. 267 [236 
Tantras, meaning of the, I. 94, 233, 
Taoism, 11. 42, 47, 108 
Taste, nature of, 11. 181 
to what extent its judgments can be 
objective, 1. 24 
Teachers, do not give but only draw 
out, 1. 154 
spiritual, 1. 286 
why necessary, I. 318 
Telepathy, possibility of, 1. 120 
will never mean much in practice, 
1 161 


398 INDEX 


Temperament, no—valuable in itself, 
1. 330 
unalterable as such, 1. 330; I. 189 
never fundamentally unequivocal, 1. 
190 
Tension, erotic, essential to man, I. 
180 
Theatre, Indian, 1. 178 
Japanese, 11. 174 
Theosophical Society, the achievements 
of, 1. 118 
possible mission of, 1. 152 
Theosophy, as religion, 1. 118, 160 
excessive simplicity of concepts of, 1. 
139 
demands externalisation of religion, 
I. 162 
and Mahayana, 1. 170 
weak in so far as it wishes to be all- 
embracing, I. 159 
ideals of—historically antiquated, 1. 
166 
draws erroneous conclusions from 
correct teachings, I. 170, 298 
misinterprets Indian wisdom, I. 118 
materialism of, 1, 118, 168 
future of, 1. 145, 159 
has no historical world mission, 1. 
168 
Thomas 4 Kempis, 1. 64, 227 
Aquinas, I. 261 
Thought, never leads beyond its own 
sphere, 1. 259 
becomes superfluous in the face of 
sufficient profundity, I. 267-8 
primarily opposed to religiosity, 11. 
227 
Thoughts, as material phenomena, 1. 
120,267.00 Ue 12. 052 
transference of, 1. 120 
are wherever they are applied, 1. 317 
Time, relativity of, 11. 366 
is qualified differently according to 
the formula of life, 11. 365, 369 
consciousness of—lacking in the Ori- 
ental, 11. 280 
Tolerance, Islamic, 1. 202 
Chinese, 11. 86 
Indian, 1. 229 
psychological cause of, 11. 314 


Tolerance, Cont. 
degree of—depends upon inner cul- 
ture, I. 294 
as the result of western evolution, 
II, 316, 350 
Tolstoi, Count Leo, 1. 78; 11. 70 
Torture, meaning of, 11. 34 
Tradition, as a fetter, 11. 289 
obedience to—among the Chinese 
equivalent to our invention, II. 29, 
56 
Transfiguration, meaning of the con- 
cept of, 1. 97 
Transfusion of spirit, nature of, 1. 133 
Travelling, value for the metaphy- 
sician of, 1. 15 
makes most people superficial, 1. 16 
Treble and bass, symbolical signifi- 
cance of, II. 365 
Triviality, of the Indian method of 
expression, I. 293 
Tropics, the, strong effect of contrast 
of, 1. 68 
lack of shades in the nature of, 11. 
20 
not favourable to a development of 
individuality, 1. 23 
consciousness in the, 1. 39, 46 
artistic reaction in the—is not spirit- 
ual, 1. 43 
influence upon Indian thought, 1, 297 
Truth, nature of, I. 134, 235, 263, 292 
can only be learned, not discovered, 
according to Indian ideas, 1. 292 
always symbolical, 1. 225 
beyond error and, I. 263 
the shortest road to, 11. 294 
through struggle to, 11. 303 
Type, none the absolute highest, 1. 302 
not interchangeable, 11. 176 
each one only capable of one kind 
of perfection, 11. 203 
belief in—as the best basis for psy- 
chology, 11. 83 
physical beauty as perfection of, 1. 
24 


Understanding as condition of experi- 
ence, I. 232), 24155326 
as perception, I. 123 





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INDEX 


Understanding, Cont. 
as the decisive factor, 1. 300 
lack of, as a positive power, I. 
194 
Unfamiliarity, stimulating power of, 
I. 139, 229 
Unity, to what extent metaphysical 
reality is a, I. 104, 263 
Universality, the idea of—has become 
exhausted, I. 159 
highest possible realisation of, 1. 
350 
Uprightness, of the Chinaman, II. 64 
culture of, 11. 60, 266 
path of, as quickest road to the goal, 
II, 306 


Values, all mortal in terms of time, 
I. 352 
no—exhaust all, 1. 182; 11. 351 
absolute, 1. 131, 305 
Vegetating, the nature of, 1. 46; 11. 15 
as the general tropical form of life, 
1. 39, 45, 46, 80 
Versatility, fatal to rulers, 1. 201 
Violence, every act of—is unjust, II. 
299 
Occidentals as men of, 11. 303 
Virginity, ideal of, the end of, 11. 200, 
204 
Virtue, and practicability, relation be- 
tween, I. 845 11, 129, 266 
all—begins with the ego, 11. 302 
Visible, world, its peculiarity, 11. 187 
does not exist for Indians, 11. 11 
form as the direct expression of be- 
ing, I. 280 
Vitality, physical—as the consequence 
of psychic culture, 11. 41 
great—of the Europeans compared 
with the Asiatics, 11. 172 
Volition, creates reality, 1. 127 


War, changes the form of conscious- 
ness, II, 162 et seq. 
necessity as a crisis of growth, 1. 
300 
possibility of avoiding, 11. 294 
Warriors, despised among Chinese, 11. 
122 


399 


Warriors, Cont. 
as preliminary stage to acquisition of 
wisdom, II. 303 
-tribes produce the highest cultural 
people, 11. 293 
West, the, nature of, 11. 260 et seg. 
failings of its civilisation, 1. 232 
whence its efficacy, 11. 280 
and destructive effect, 11. 293, 297 
fundamental difference compared 
with the East, 1. 212; 11. 261 
stress of the value of the individual 
in, 11, 314 
mission of, 11. 349 
its road to significance leads through 
appearance, I. 57; II. 282 et seq. 
essential masculinity of, 1. 166 et 
seq. 
definition of, 1. 212 
to what extent barbaric, 11. 264 
has confessed unsuitable ideals for 
too long a period, 1. 170 
its culture is of Mediterranean ori- 
gin, 1. 209 
Westerner, the, embodies the highest 
level of nature, 11. 264, 351 
low level of nature of, 11. 263 
condition of consciousness of, II. 
281 
fundamental nature of, 1. 212; 11. 
260 
essentially masculine, I. 166 et seg. 
dependence upon external circum- 
stances, II, 288 
essentially fighter, 11. 303 
not man of understanding but of 
action, Ty 170811. 312 
moral barbarian, 11. 53, 129 
unspiritual, 1, 133 
essential youth of, 11. 283 
culture of uprightness, 11. 307 
dishonesty, 11. 65 
mission upon earth, 11. 351 
why he must predominate to-day, 11. 
301 
empirical conditions of his existence, 
II, 282 
originality of, 11. 136 
Wisdom, to what extent the—of the 
ancients is insurpassable, 1. 135 


400 


Wisdom, Cont. 
and superstition, belong together in 
India, I. 256 
as the greatest thing in life, 1. 304 
profoundest—emanates from places 
near the sun, I. 224 
Witchcraft, possibility of, 1. 94; IL 
15 
Women, specific profundity of, 1. 
206 
need to devote themselves, 11. 192 
of the eighteenth century, 1. 34 
and plants, II. 16 
position of fallen, 11. 200 
of the future, how they will regard 
marriage, 11. 101 
Japanese—as the most perfect type 
of this era, 11. 201 
Word, magical effect of the spoken, 1. 
Sho 
must become flesh, 1. 310 
has become flesh in China more than 
anywhere else, 11. 68 
the—of Confucianism to be under- 
stood as flesh, 11. 52 
wealth of —s, cause of the Indian, 
1. 101, 106 
Work, all equally honourable, 11. 320 
its overestimation in the West, 1. 


248 
no more serious than playing, 1 
282 
World religions, their time has passed, 
Legos 


Worldliness, 1. 33 
Worship of relics, 1. 86 


Yoga, fundamental theory of, 1. 265 
analysis and significance of, 1. 125 
as a school for the development of 

the psychic forces, 1. 126 


INDEX 


Yoga, Cont. 


as physical exercises of the soul, 1. 
128 

the profoundest nature of, 1. 266 

metaphysical interest of, 1. 129 

does not necessarily make men better, 
1129 

disadvantages of, 11. 10 

dangers of, 1. 276 

different effects upon different na- 
tures, II. 228 

raison d’étre of Oriental art, 1. 281 

Catholic and Indian—compared, 1. 
261 

advantage of 
others, 11. 230 

Japanese, 11, 228 

the specifically European, 11. 232 

western Karma Yoga as the pro- 
foundest of all, 11. 306 

three kinds of, 1, 237 

each one of these appropriate to a 
definite temperament, I. 237 

methodical significance, 1. 126, 266 

inner truth of the theory of, 1. 126 

makes for potentiality, 1. 130 

Yogis, essentially healthy and normal, 

1. 144 

powers of, I, 266; 11. 252 

Oriental artists as, I. 281 

why they are considered as the high- 
est men in India, 1. 298, 302 

the perfect, 1. 266 

and worldly-wise men, 11. 51 

Buddha was not a, 1. 310 

Youth, of western humanity, 11. 284 ef 

seq. 

eternal—as postulate of the western 
possibility of evolution, 11, 288 


Indian—over all 


Zen, II. 227 


END OF VOLUME II 


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